Dictaphone

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Blind stenographer from the Overbrook School for the Blind using a dictaphone.
Dictaphone wax cylinder dictation machine
Dictaphone on display in a museum

Dictaphone was an American company founded by Alexander Graham Bell that produced dictation machines. It is now a division of Nuance Communications, based in Burlington, Massachusetts.

Although the name "Dictaphone" is a

genericized as a means to refer to any dictation machine
.

History

The Volta Laboratory was established by Alexander Graham Bell in Washington, D.C. in 1881. When the Laboratory's sound-recording inventions were sufficiently developed with the assistance of Charles Sumner Tainter and others, Bell and his associates set up the Volta Graphophone Company, which later merged with the American Graphophone Company (founded in 1887) which itself later evolved into Columbia Records[1] (founded as the Columbia Phonograph Company in 1889).

The name "Dictaphone" was trademarked in 1907 by the

disc-based technology. Dictaphone was spun off into a separate company in 1923 under the leadership of C. King Woodbridge.[2]

In 1947, having relied on wax-cylinder recording to the end of

mini-cassettes or microcassettes
instead. Using smaller cassette sizes was important to the manufacturer for reducing the size of portable recorders.

Walter D. Fuller became the director of the company in 1952.[3] In 1969 he was appointed as chairman.[4]

In Japan, JVC was licensed to produce machines designed and developed by Dictaphone. Dictaphone and JVC later developed the picocassette, released in 1985, which was even smaller than a microcassette but retained a good recording quality and duration.

Dictaphone also developed "endless loop" recording[

recording medium did not need to be moved from where the dictation took place to the location such as a typing pool where the typists were located. This was normally operated via a dedicated in-house telephone system, enabling dictation to be made from a variety of locations within the hospital or other organizations with typing pools. One version calculated each typist's turnaround time
and allocated the next piece of dictation accordingly.

Dictaphone was prominent in the provision of multi-channel recorders, used extensively in the emergency services to record emergency telephone calls (to numbers such as 911, 999, 112) and subsequent conversations.

Additionally, Dictaphone at one point expanded its product line to market a line of electronic (desktop and portable) calculators.

In 1979, Dictaphone was purchased by Pitney Bowes and kept as a wholly owned but independent subsidiary.

Dictaphone bought Dual Display Word Processor, a stiff competitor to Wang Laboratories, the industry leader.[citation needed]

In 1982, it marketed a

Symantec. The hardware sold for $5,950 in 1982. The software was an additional $600.[5] The advent of the personal computer, MS-DOS
, and general-purpose word-processing software saw the demise of the dedicated word-processor, and the division was closed.

In 1995, Pitney Bowes sold Dictaphone to the investment group Stonington Partners of Connecticut for a reported $462 million.

speech-recognition and voicemail
software with limited success as the market only existed among some early adopters despite its vertical markets' enhancements.

In 2000, Dictaphone was acquired by the then-leading Belgian voice-recognition and translation company

SEC raised questions about Lernout & Hauspie's finances, focusing on the supposedly skyrocketing income reported from its East Asian endeavors. Subsequently, the company and all its subsidiaries, including Dictaphone, were forced into bankruptcy protection.[8]

In early 2002, Dictaphone emerged from bankruptcy as a

chairman and CEO.[9][10]
In 2004, it was split into three divisions:

  • IHS, focusing on dictation for the healthcare and medical industries;
  • IVS, focusing on dictation in law offices and police stations;
  • CRS (Communications Recording Solutions), focusing on
    call centers
    .

In June 2005, Dictaphone Corporation announced the sale of its Communications Recording Systems to

NICE Systems for $38.5 million.[11] This was considered a great bargain in the industry[12][failed verification] and came after NICE was ordered to pay Dictaphone $10 million in settlements related to a patent-infringement suit in late 2003.[13][14]

In September 2005, Dictaphone sold its IVS business outside the United States to a private Swiss group around its former VP Martin Niederberger, who formed Dictaphone IVS AG (later Calison AG) in Urdorf, Switzerland and developed "FRISBEE", the first hardware-independent dictation-management software system with integrated speech-recognition and workflow management. In 2008, iSpeech AG took over the activities and products of the former Calison AG.

In February and March 2006, the remainder of Dictaphone was sold for $357 million to

ScanSoft), ending its short tenure as an independent company that had begun in 2002. This, in effect, closed a circle of events, as Dictaphone had been sold to Lernout & Hauspie prior to L&H's bankruptcy which resulted in Dictaphone becoming an independent company.[15]

In March 2007, Nuance acquired Focus Informatics and, with the intention of further expansion in its healthcare-transcription business, linked it with its Dictaphone division.[16]

See also

References

  1. ISBN 0-8014-9691-8
    .
  2. ^ "Dictaphone". Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 2012-06-22.
  3. ^ "Dictaphone Corporation Elects a New Director". The New York Times. February 20, 1952. Retrieved 2015-08-04. The election of Walter D. Fuller as a director of the Dictaphone Corporation ...
  4. ^ "Dictaphone Corporation Promotes Executive". The New York Times. February 20, 1952. Retrieved 2015-08-04. The election of Donald D. Marsden to the newly-created post of vice president for finance and administration in the Dictaphone Corporation was announced yesterday by Walter W. Finke, president. Mr. Marsden also was made a board
  5. ^ "Dictaphone". The New York Times. October 12, 1982. Retrieved 2015-08-04. The Dictaphone Corporation, a unit of Pitney Bowes, has introduced a word processor that would give users the ability to retrieve electronically stored information by typing questions in English
  6. ^ "Pitney Bowes Selling Dictaphone". Chicagotribune.com.
  7. ^ "Dictaphone Corporation acquisition offers L&H resources to establish stronghold in health care solutions". Hoise.com.
  8. ^ "Around-The-Globe: L&H Files Chapter 11". Forbes.com.
  9. ^ "Dictaphone emerges from bankruptcy". News.cnet.com.
  10. ^ "Dictaphone Announces Confirmation of Chapter 11 Plan of Reorganization; Expected to Emerge as Independent Company by End of Month". thefreelibrary.com. Archived from the original on 2012-10-24. Retrieved 2011-08-08.
  11. ^ "Dictaphone Selling Call Recording Business To Nice Systems". Blog.tmcnet.com. Dictaphone Corporation announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement with NICE Systems (NASDAQ: NICE) under which NICE will acquire the assets of Dictaphone's Communication Recording Systems (CRS) business for $38.5 million.
  12. ^ "Dictaphone Selling Call Recording Business To Nice Systems". Blog.tmcnet.com.
  13. ^ "NICE Systems and Dictaphone Corporation Settle Patent Litigation". Nice.com. Archived from the original on 2011-10-02.
  14. ^ "Settlement Agreement with Dictaphone". Wikiinvest.com. Archived from the original on April 6, 2012.
  15. ^ "Speech vendor Nuance buys Dictaphone". Infoworld.com.
  16. ^ "Nuance Closes Acquisition of Focus Infomatics". Huliq.com.
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