Dictaphone
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
company, a producer of dictation machine
Dictation machine
A dictation machine is a sound recording device most commonly used to record speech for later playback or to be typed into print. It includes digital voice recorders and tape recorders....
s—sound recording devices most commonly used to record speech for later playback or to be typed into print. The name "Dictaphone" is a trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
, but in some places it has also become a common way to refer to all such devices, and is used as a genericized trademark
Genericized trademark
A genericized trademark is a trademark or brand name that has become the colloquial or generic description for, or synonymous with, a general class of product or service, rather than as an indicator of source or affiliation as intended by the trademark's holder...
. At present, Dictaphone is a division of Boston-based Nuance Communications
Nuance Communications
Nuance Communications is a multinational computer software technology corporation, headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, USA, that provides speech and imaging applications...
.
History
The Dictaphone's earliest development occurred at the Volta Laboratory established by Alexander Graham BellAlexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone....
in Washington, D.C. in 1881. When the Laboratory's sound recording inventions were sufficiently developed, Bell and his associates created the Volta Graphophone Company, which later merged with the American Graphophone Company, which itself later evolved into Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
.
The name "Dictaphone" was trademarked by the Columbia Graphophone Company
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
in 1907, which soon became the leading manufacturer of such devices. This perpetuated the use of wax cylinders for voice recording. They had fallen out of favor for music recordings, in favor of disc technology. Dictaphone was spun off into a separate company in 1923 under the leadership of C. King Woodbridge.
After relying on wax cylinder recording through the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, in 1947 Dictaphone introduced their Dictabelt
Dictabelt
The Dictabelt or Memobelt was a form of recording medium introduced by the American Dictaphone company in 1947. It used a type of "Write Once - Read Many" medium consisting of a thin, plastic belt 3.5" wide that was placed on a cylinder and spun like a tank tread. The needle would then move slowly...
technology, which cut a mechanical groove into a plastic belt instead of into a wax cylinder. This was later replaced by magnetic sound sheet recording, which was sold until 1979. Magnetic tape recorders were introduced in the late seventies, initially using the standard "C" cassette (originally developed by Philips, and the de facto standard for music cassettes). This was quickly followed by the release of recorders using Mini-Cassettes (also developed by Philips, but for the dictation industry), Microcassette
Microcassette
A Microcassette is an audio storage medium introduced by Olympus in 1969. It uses the same width of magnetic tape as the Compact Cassette but in a much smaller container. By using thinner tape and half or a quarter the tape speed, microcassettes can offer comparable recording time to the compact...
s (developed by Olympus for the dictation market). For the first time the equipment was manufactured in Japan by JVC, but designed and developed by Dictaphone. The size of the cassette was important, as it enabled the manufacturer to reduce the size of portable recorders, which were growing in popularity. Dictaphone later developed the Pico cassette with JVC, released in 1985. This was smaller, but still had good recording time and quality.
Dictaphone had also developed the "endless loop" recording using magnetic tape. This was introduced in the mid-seventies as the "Thought Tank." A number of editions were launched, and this became a popular choice, particularly within the health care profession, as the recording medium did not move from where the dictation took place, making it perfect for environments which could lead to contamination or infection. The system could be used within typing pools, and one variation calculated the turn around time for each typist and allocated the next piece of dictation to the typist with the fastest time.
Dictaphone was prominent in multi-channel recorders. These are extensively used in the emergency services to record emergency telephone calls (911, 999, 112) and the subsequent radio conversations. As financial markets were liberated in the early 1980s, these recorders were used in the financial industry to record conversations in dealing rooms. The recordings were made on reel-to-reel tape, and could be located and replayed by date and time. In the late 1980s digital recording was offered as an alternative to the reel-to-reel tape, and soon became the medium of choice.
In 1979, Dictaphone was purchased by Pitney Bowes
Pitney Bowes
Pitney Bowes Inc. is a Stamford, Connecticut-based manufacturer of software and hardware and a provider of services related to documents, packaging, mailing, and shipping, collectively referred to as mailstream. The company has approximately 36,000 employees worldwide. It is one of 87 existing...
, but was kept as a wholly owned but autonomous subsidiary. During this period the Dual Display Word Processor company was purchased, a competitor to Wang Laboratories, the industry leader. 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.
During the following years, Dictaphone sold a range of products, including voice recognition and voicemail
Voicemail
Voicemail is a computer based system that allows users and subscribers to exchange personal voice messages; to select and deliver voice information; and to process transactions relating to individuals, organizations, products and services, using an ordinary telephone...
software.
In 2000, Dictaphone was acquired by the then-leading Belgian voice recognition and translation
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
company Lernout & Hauspie
Lernout & Hauspie
Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products, or L&H, was a leading Belgium-based speech recognition technology company, founded by Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie, that went bankrupt in 2001...
for nearly $1 billion. Lernout & Hauspie provided the voice recognition technology for Dictaphone's voice recognition enhanced transcription system.
Soon after the purchase, and triggered by an increased ownership of U.S. companies — following the purchase of Dictaphone, within a month Lernout & Hauspie purchased its main voice-recognition competitor in the U.S., Dragon Systems, who has since been acquired by Nuance Communications
Nuance Communications
Nuance Communications is a multinational computer software technology corporation, headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, USA, that provides speech and imaging applications...
, Inc. — the SEC
United States Securities and Exchange Commission
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is a federal agency which holds primary responsibility for enforcing the federal securities laws and regulating the securities industry, the nation's stock and options exchanges, and other electronic securities markets in the United States...
raised questions about Lernout & Hauspie’s finances, focusing on reported income from its East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
n endeavors, which seemed to sky-rocket during these times. Subsequently, the company and all its subsidiaries were forced into bankruptcy protection
Chapter 11, Title 11, United States Code
Chapter 11 is a chapter of the United States Bankruptcy Code, which permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Chapter 11 bankruptcy is available to every business, whether organized as a corporation or sole proprietorship, and to individuals, although it is most...
for U.S. assets such as Dictaphone.
In early 2002, Dictaphone emerged from bankruptcy as a privately held organization, with Rob Schwager as its Chairman and CEO
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
, while the remaining assets were broken up and sold individually, with ScanSoft, now known as Nuance Communications, Inc., acquiring core businesses such as Dragon Systems and voice recognition research personnel in the U.S.
In 2004, Dictaphone was split into three divisions:
- IHS — Healthcare division which focuses on dictation for the medical industry
- IVS — dictation for law offices and police stations
- CRS — Communications Recording Solutions. Focuses on recording phones and radios in public safety organizations and quality monitoring solutions for call centers.
In June 2005, Dictaphone sold its Communications Recording Solutions to NICE Systems
NICE Systems
NICE Systems Ltd. , together with its subsidiaries, provides solutions that enable enterprises and security organizations to extract insight from interactions, transactions and surveillance....
for $38.5 million, which was considered a great bargain in the industry. This comes after NICE was ordered to pay Dictaphone $10 million in settlements related to a patent infringement suit in late 2003. Dictaphone has since focused its goals in speech recognition for the healthcare industry with only limited success, mainly building on its well established brand name.
In September 2005, Dictaphone sold the IVS Business outside the United States to a private Swiss group, who formed Dictaphone IVS AG, later called Calison AG, in Urdorf
Urdorf
Urdorf is a municipality in the district of Dietikon in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland, located in the Limmat Valley .-Geography:...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. This group developed the first hardware-independent dictation management software solution ("FRISBEE") with integrated speech recognition
Speech recognition
Speech recognition converts spoken words to text. The term "voice recognition" is sometimes used to refer to recognition systems that must be trained to a particular speaker—as is the case for most desktop recognition software...
and workflow
Workflow
A workflow consists of a sequence of connected steps. It is a depiction of a sequence of operations, declared as work of a person, a group of persons, an organization of staff, or one or more simple or complex mechanisms. Workflow may be seen as any abstraction of real work...
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 Nuance Communications
Nuance Communications
Nuance Communications is a multinational computer software technology corporation, headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, USA, that provides speech and imaging applications...
, formerly known as ScanSoft, ending its short tenure as an independent company it started in early 2002, and effectively closing a circle of events which began in early 2000 by being sold to Lernout & Hauspie (assets of which were sold to ScanSoft/Nuance in the events of early 2002).
In March 2007, Nuance acquired Focus Infomatics and linked it with the Dictaphone Division to further expand in the health-care transcription business with some initial success.