Nuance Communications

Nuance Communications

Nuance Communications is a multinational computer software technology corporation, headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, USA, that provides speech and imaging applications...

 has since purchased SpeechWorks.

SpeechWorks was a company founded in the late 1990s in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

 that developed and supported speech-related computer software. The company was purchased in mid-2003 by Peabody, Massachusetts

Peabody, Massachusetts

Peabody is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population is about 53,000. Peabody is located in Boston's North Shore suburban area.- History :...

-based Nuance Communications

Nuance Communications

Nuance Communications is a multinational computer software technology corporation, headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, USA, that provides speech and imaging applications...

, which was then known as ScanSoft.

SpeechWorks' major products were speech recognition

Speech recognition

Speech recognition converts spoken words to text. The term "voice recognition" is sometimes used to refer to recognition systems that must be trained to a particular speaker—as is the case for most desktop recognition software...

 and synthesis

Speech synthesis

Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware...

 systems, which were merged with ScanSoft's speech product line. The name SpeechWorks was reincarnated as the brand name for all of ScanSoft's networked and embedded speech solutions until the merger with Nuance.

SpeechWorks enjoyed a close relationship with America Online through its voice-portal infrastructure partner Quack.com

Quack.com

AOLByPhone was an AOL interactive voice service that began in 2000. It was offered to millions of consumers. AOLByPhone started with the America Online acquisition of Quack.com, evolving through the subsequent relaunching of Quack.com's Voice Portal as AOLByPhone. AOLbyPhone expanded as AOL...

 which licensed SpeechWorks' technology and was acquired by AOL

AOL

AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...

. SpeechWorks technology has been employed with major AOL

AOL

AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...

 brands including Moviefone

Moviefone

Moviefone is an American-based movie listing and information service. Moviegoers can obtain local showtimes, theatre information, film reviews, or advance tickets...

 through Quack's voice services.

SpeechWorks purchased Ithaca, New York

Ithaca, New York

The city of Ithaca, is a city in upstate New York and the county seat of Tompkins County, as well as the largest community in the Ithaca-Tompkins County metropolitan area...

-based Eloquent Technologies, Inc. in 2000 for $17 million.

Speechwords was originally named ALTech (Applied Language Technology) and did early demonstrations the ShowNTel platform created by Technically Speaking, Inc. which was ultimately sold to Brooktrout