Nuance Communications – A lot more to offer than just SIRI

One of the new features for the Apple iPhone4S was voice recognition – the ability to schedule, search and command the iPhone with a natural speaking voice.
This capability went by the name of SIRI and much of the technology behind it was created by Nuance Communications, Inc.

Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:NUAN) deals with a great many software products that feature voice recognition. One of its products, “Dragon Dictate”, is the most frequently used product for PC voice recognition and has led the field for the past 15 years.

Nuance also creates products for medical transcription, automated telephone directories, telephone call steering systems, optical character recognition, desktop imaging software and server embedded speech recognition, The medical field may draw much less media attention than Nuance’s retail consumer oriented products, but given government and industry efforts to cut costs and move to greater use of electronic medical records this area has great potential for a company like Nuance.

Nuance has also recently announced a universally-compatible voice control platform for all TV and set-top box manufacturers and a voice control system for Android smart phones.

The company also maintains a small division which does software and system development for agencies in the military and the government.

Naturally, the SIRI feature on the latest iPhone has been a promotional success for Nuance Communications, resulting in a lineup of other companies who are also interested in this new trend to bring voice recognition to their product lines.
Included in the many rumors circling Apple’s iTV is the possibility that Steve Job’s dream control – the simplest remote ever made, will be powered by Nuance communication’s voice recognition capabilities.

As noted above, one of Nuance Communication, Inc.’s successes has been in the world of medicine. The healthcare industry, which includes hospitals, clinics, medical groups, physicians’ offices and insurance providers, is under significant pressure to streamline operations, reduce costs and improve the care of patients, and all three of these goals can be met by implementing voice recognition technology for such things as dictating and transcribing patient records.

Nuance Communication offer improved speech recognition solution interfaces with electronic medical records, extraction of clinical information to support billing and insurance reimbursement, radiology, cardiology, pathology and related specialties that help healthcare providers dictate, edit and sign reports without manual transcription.

Their customer base includes such noted companies as the Mayo Clinic, Banner Health, HCA, NHS, Kaiser Permanente, and the U.S. Army.

In addition, medical dictation for spoken French has now been made available to the Canadian medical industry.

We believe investors wanting to add a long term growth stock to their portfolio should take a look at NUAN. NUAN has significantly beat the S&P 500 and DOW indices over the past year, five year and ten year periods. For example, over the past year, NUAN’s share price has risen approximately 50% compared to around breakeven for the S&P 500 and Dow. Over the past ten years, NUAN’s share price has risen over 450%, compared to around 30% for the S&P 500 and 20% for the DOW.
And as noted above, Nuance Communications primary business of providing voice and language solutions worldwide, with the related focus on healthcare, and this bodes well for both the company and its stock. NUAN is currently trading in the high $20s per share and has been swinging upwards.

The Company’s trailing P/E ratio of almost 250 may seem extreme, but most analysts are predicting that the company’s recent attainment of profitability will continue over the foreseeable future and NUAN’s P/E ratios based on projected earnings are in line with those of fast growing companies.

As with every investment opportunity, make sure to do your own due diligence by checking company filings and consulting with professionals in the investment field. Also, please read our disclaimer.