NEWS APRIL2010

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SpinVox speaks its last to consumers

Nuance in late December, for approximately $102.5m, comprising $66m in cash and $36.5m in Nuance common stock. Nuance was unimpressed

with the way SpinVox had been run, noting that the firm had “incurred large historical losses, owing to expenses associated with its international expansion and substantial staffing.” The firm is understood

Ex Spinvox CEO Christina Domecq

Troubled UK-based voice to text pioneer SpinVox began cutting off its consumer accounts at the end of March, as the company’s new owner prepares to focus

on operator partnerships. SpinVox confirmed

long standing rumours that it was up for sale by announcing its acquisition by speech recognition firm

to be cutting the headcount at SpinVox and sent a message to its undisclosed number of consumer users telling them their service will be disconnected by March 27. Nuance is instead integrating SpinVox’s carrier services with its own speech recognition platform to help it scale to meet the needs of its existing customer base. This means Nuance will have

a carrier-grade voice-to- text service that can handle millions of messages per day, with support for English, Spanish, German, Italian, French, and Portuguese among other languages. Keen to fill SpinVox’s

now abandoned consumer shoes, rival voice to text firm VoxSciences is touting for business by stating that it is ready to receive SpinVox clients looking for a replacement service. VoxSciences, CEO Ken

Blackman said, “VoxSciences operates a very similar service to Spinvox and we welcome all former Spinvox customers.” Prior to its sale to

Nuance, SpinVox’s finances had been the source of much speculation, following a cash injection of £15m in mid-2009. When MCI

visited the company’s Marlow headquarters in the summer of 2009 Domecq had said that SpinVox was, “Most definitely not looking for a buyer. Getting a company to cashflow positive is a big tickbox for an entrepreneur.” At the time, Domecq

conceded that the global credit crunch had forced the company to extend its credit terms with suppliers and that SpinVox was also in legal disputes with several suppliers over non-payments due to “quality of service issues”. Furthermore, a controversial share offer scheme under which employees were able to substitute some or all of their paycheques for shares was only put in place to “help SpinVox manage its cashflow”.

Vodafone navigation unit at dead end

Just over a year ago, monster carrier Vodafone showed just how serious it was about the navigation space, by spending €26m on the purchase of Swedish navigation and location-based services firm Wayfinder. A lot has changed since then, and the market for paid for navigation services has been disrupted by the recent arrival of Nokia’s free mapping service, not to mention the availability of Google Maps and associated services. As a result, the

world’s biggest carrier

08

by revenues has decided to shut down Wayfinder, and will instead look for new partners to provide navigation services, most notably to its Vodafone 360 social networking platform. “In the last six months

or so the business model for providing navigation services to consumers has changed dramatically,” a Vodafone spokeswoman said. “It’s almost become a hygiene factor to offer navigation. So it no longer made commercial sense to have it as a paid for service.”

Vodafone also has a

partnership with Tele Atlas and the company has confirmed that it will continue to provide navigation services, which it sees “as a core part of the business,” it just won’t develop them in house. The carrier said that it

had responded to market conditions quickly. “So now we’re looking at who we are partnering with, whether it be one or many companies, to deliver a services mash up between navigation and the connected address book.” Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44