AOL Sells Tegic to Nuance

Nuance Communications and Time Warner announced yesterday they have signed a definitive agreement whereby Nuance will acquire Tegic Communications a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL and a developer of embedded software for mobile devices. Tegic brings industry-leading T9 predictive text input software, which has shipped on more than 2.5 billion devices, and next-generation integrated text and touch input solutions to Nuance’s portfolio of voice-enabled applications for device control, mobile search, email and text messaging.

The transaction expands Nuance’s presence in the mobile industry and allows it to further accelerate the delivery of solutions that unlock the power of mobile devices and networks. In addition, the companies share a common focus and strategy for serving the needs of their shared customers and partners within the mobile industry, including Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG and Motorola.

Combining Tegic’s T9 predictive text and multimodal input solutions with Nuance’s advanced speech technologies for mobile devices, the acquisition sets the stage for a new mobile user interface that combines voice, text and touch to dramatically improve the user experience for consumers and mobile professionals. Building on a partnership between Nuance and Tegic established in 2005, Nuance intends to deliver an all-in-one interface that integrates Nuance and Tegic solutions to support predictive text, speech and touch input. This multimodal interface will provide easier access for users of mobile devices and will be available to all manufacturers across their product lines.

We have a video interview with Tony De Ruvo, director of product marketing, about their new T9 Discovery Tool at the recent Marcus Evans 3G Forum held here in Tokyo.