Nuance Acquired NSi for MFP Capture Space

Most people are familiar with Nuance, if only for its voice-to-text software. It’s also the “man behind the curtain” for Apple’s Siri iPhone-based voice recognition system. This week, Nuance acquired NSi (Notable Solutions, Inc), its primary competitor for MFP capture. This is a clear move to bolster the company’s document imaging division, which is quite sizable in the industry. NSi’s AutoStore software was very popular with HP’s Digital Sender network scanner, and their software is heavily integrated into Ricoh products today (their largest partner, though they work with at least a half a dozen other manufacturers and vendors).

Nuance seems to want to leverage Notable’s enterprise capture solutions and build upon or expand its largely SMB-focused eCopy MFP capture software (which is sort of a MFP document capture solution in-a-box). It’s doubtful the two software pieces will merge, but rather Nuance will be able to address a greater portion of the market than previously possible. Presumably, the engineering departments can also share and combine resources as is helpful and beneficial to each piece of software as well.

The strength of eCopy was in its ability to work with scan-enabled devices right out of the box, where NSi’s software tended to work on enterprise servers for a more connected solution that could leverage additional horsepower and larger more processor and storage-intensive jobs. The moment Nuance acquired NSi, they brought on board the ability to better infiltrate and engage the enterprise space.

One thing is clear from this acquisition: Nuance is continuing to take on more in the document imaging business segment, even as companies like Samsung consider purchasing the company (possibly for other motivations). Nuance has yet to make this news public for some reason, but perhaps they are waiting for their Q3 fiscal briefing. Neither company seems to be taking any immediate actions to alter their normal business practices at present.

Source: wirthconsulting.org