On July 14, Nuance Communications (Nasdaq: NUAN) announced it has acquired Jott. Jott provides the Jott Assistant, a service that enables users to create notes, set reminders and appointments, send email and text messages, and post to social web services by voice from any device through a toll-free number. There are other similar services under the general category of "memory assistants" (see following section). The service will be part of Nuance's Mobile Division voice services portfolio. The Nuance announcement indicated that combined Nuance and Jott teams will focus on several initiatives: - Jott Assistant service: The service has signed up hundreds of thousands of users. Nuance plans to package and offer Jott Assistant to mobile operators as part of its voice services portfolio, including Nuance Voicemail-to-Text. - Enterprise version: By combining voice services with email, text messaging, and a variety of web services, Jott's service is a mobile productivity solution for the enterprise market. Nuance, with its Enterprise Unified Communications partners, will offer a secure, highly scalable, and differentiated Enterprise package including Nuance Voicemail-to-Text, Messaging, and Collaboration. - Open APIs: As used in Jott for Salesforce, Jott provides open APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) that allow for voice integration with third party CRM providers and other enterprise applications that require mobile access. Nuance will continue to expand the CRM partner program through its existing CRM partnerships, providing a mobile voice interface option to enterprise application providers. Nuance indicated that all of Jott services, including Jott Assistant, Jott Voicemail, and Jott for Salesforce, will remain available, and existing customers will experience no interruptions in service. Jott has in the past used Voxeo as a hosting partner. Nuance also has hosting operations, Nuance On Demand (built on another acquisition, BeVocal, in April 2007, SSN, May 2007, p. 11). Michael Thompson, senior vice president and general manager, Nuance Mobile, summarized, "Jott's voice-to-text offerings have experienced a groundswell of adoption and positive industry recognition since the company's inception, and we're thrilled about the opportunity to expand our market reach and our voice services portfolio. Together we will deliver a range of new services to our mobile operator and enterprise customers." Memory assistants Patti Price, Principal, PPRICE Speech and Language Technology Consulting, discussed the variations in user interfaces and philosophy among "Speech-Enabled Memory Assistants" in a VUI Visions guest column (SSN, May 2009, p. 26). In addition to Jott, Price discussed me2me (see also SSN, May 2009, p. 8, and June 2009, p. 18), JustKnow (which Price indicated uses text-to-speech but not speech recognition), and Reqall (SSN, March 2007, p. 28). (Reqall recently announced it will be using Yap's speech-to-text service.) Microsoft demonstrated Microsoft Recite as a "technology preview" in February (SSN, March 2009, p. 1). Recite acts as an unstructured memory aid on a mobile phone running Windows Mobile version 6.0 or higher, and uses Microsoft speech technology to run entirely within the device.
