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Not too sure. Prism has some middleware components. Nuance is growing pretty large. This murmuring of the acquisition by Samsung apparently hasn't worried many, my guess is they are only buying the voice, dictation, "mobile device" business. I have a feeling the imaging division could be left in tact. However, this play in my opinion is a power move to Nuance to someone who was stealing market share in their space so big bad behemoth Nuance just said I will buy you rather than compete. They already have announced the adaption of Omni Page - 

 

http://resources.notablesoluti...partnerOCRnotice.pdf

I'm assuming Nuance bough NSI simply because Output manager was going to take more market share away Equitrac. I know Ricoh and Konica Minolta and Xerox almost exclusively sell equitrac and autostore in nearly every big deal they have. as NSI improved output mamanger it would have taken away allot of Equitrac sales. (this also makes me wonder how many times Nuance has tried to buy papercut)

 

Nuance pretty much dominates in the voice recognition software, with Dragon & Dictaphone. Now with Equitrac, Safecom, Copitrak Output manager, eCopy, ppdm, NSI Autostore, they nearly control the imaging market. 

 

Pretty soon there will be two monopoly's in the office equipment industry Nuance and ECI. The thoughts of those two companies running things must keep independent dealers up at night.  

 

This definitely changes things. But Canon doesn't use NSi they created their own scanning workflow piece in uniFlow much to the chagrin of nuance. KM uses prism scan path as well as a product called dispatcher Phoenix. Companies will either have to organically grow their own or use a Kofax ($$$) solution if they don't want to use nuance.

Nuance wants to be integral in every mfp. If they see a competitor doing something better they have the resources to just buy them up. Yes this screams monopoly but they aren't doing anything illegal since the oem manufacturers hold the keys. They just see another revenue opportunity that they are losing market share to so instead of compete they just purchase them. IMHO

Their support structure is flawed and they know it everyone complains about it. NSi support was good. This could be a play to fix the support issue as well since NSi has a legit support structure. But I truly think this was an eliminate a market share player and make them part of our umbrella so the OEM has very few third party choices.

I had a call from some at NSI today and while he was surprised, he remained upbeat about what NSI will be able to accomplish under the umbrella of Nuance. 

 

Me, I'm no fan of Nuance.  I'm afraid Nuance will take the technology that they want from NSI (like they did with equitrac, ecopy, digidoc flow, and copytrak) and gut the rest.

 

AS far as "capture technology" for connectors that work with popular business lines of software. Well,  Nuance has created a monolopy.  Only time will tell how this pans out.

 

 

I heard about Nuance buying NSI when I was at the NTware (UniFLOW) Forum in Chicago last Monday & Tuesday. When you add in the rumors that Samsung may buy Nuance, it makes you go hmmmmm? For Samsung dealers like me, that would be pretty cool (Cat Bird Seat). But I could see how it would not be great for non-Samsung Dealers. But you shouldn't kid yourself that Samsung would ONLY be interested in their voice recognition software. You are "whistling past a graveyard" if you think that. Samsung has stated that they plan to be #5 in 3 years, and #3 in 5 years in the MFD market.

 

As far as Nuance Service, I hear you! They have fallen a long way since the days when Ed Schimd ran eCopy and they had the best support in the industry. I have been in the field with Ed installing their "Fileroom" product (never really made it to market). I came real close to excepting a job with eCopy when he ran it.But that is another story.

 

We all know that Nuance has struggled with supporting the dealer channel. I blogged about it in December of 2013 when their stock dropped to a 52 week low after a number of their executives sold off much of their stock. But Nuance has made some smart moves recently. They brought over 4 key people from EFI to help support their Dealer Channel. Lenny Bono was one of them. I had dinner with him and our Nuance Rep (Lynda Magglio) shortly after Lenny came on board with Nuance. He assured me that they were making strides to improve their support for the dealer channel. Now I had heard that promise before (3 years earlier at the same restaurant by a dozen or so VPs & Directors when Nuance first bought eCopy). The difference is I know Lenny, and he has always been a straight shooter with me. So I asked our Post sales Systems Manager to keep an eye on Nuance support for eCopy, and let me know if it gets any better, or any worse. I will tell you that My Post Sales Systems Manager who is our lead on eCopy ShareScan tells me that it has indeed gotten better. I am sure that it could be better still, but it is moving in the right direction. And the main thing that Nuance did to fix their channel support issues is to bring in "copier guys". Guys with toner in their blood. Guys who have been in the field and have personally supported the dealer channel. Guys who tell you the truth when they look in your eye and shake your hand. Lenny Bono is one of these guys. I am betting the other EFI guys are cut from a similar cloth. You may want to ask your post sales SEs if they have noticed any difference. Hopefully the won't be so jaded by the history of poor support from Nuance that they can still judge the current support objectively. Please post what they say.

 

I was trained on, and sold & supported NSI's AutoStore when I worked as the Solutions Manager for Ricoh Business Systems. It is a good product. Canon has had a blind spot for this product, at least in the USA. Canon Europe has an embedded NSI AutoStore client. Maybe this will change that, but maybe not.

 

If Samsung does buy Nuance with their impressive catalog of "Imaging" products how would that effect the other manufacturers? Would they stop selling these solutions? That would be like cutting off your nose to spite your face (no winner there).

 

In your opinion what happens at your Manufacturer is this does indeed happen? I sell Samsung so for me it would be a win. What are your thoughts?

 

You've heard my $0.02. What say ye?

Vince McHugh

Vince,

 

We sell NSI and seems we'll continue to sell NSI for sometime, unless the support goes to $%^#.

 

The only feature that I'm concerned about is the connectors for business lines of software that both NSI & ecopy offer.  Seems (please correct me if I'm wrong) that almost no one else offers the pre built connectors for scanning.  This has me concerned with that one company holding all of the connectors. We'll see how this pans out down the road.

 

I would hope that the support will be just as good under Nuance or even better.

 

As far as Nuance getting purchased by Samsung, it would interesting to see if they keep the office technology or sell it off.  If I were Samsung and had my sights on becoming a more important player with MFP's, then I would keep the office technology.  Just think, the like of Ricoh, Sharp, Xerox, KonicaMinolta, well, everyone would have to buy from Samsung. Pretty lucrative for Samsung.

Art,

 

    eCopy has the best catalog of connectors for scanning. I think at last count there were over 250 connectors, some made by eCopy (Nuance) and many others by third party. I haven't sold NSI's AutoStore in a while so you may be better at addressing their connectors.

 

   It is interesting to note that the low cost for the entry level scanning products are effecting the Canon UniFLOW product. They announced at the forum that they would be offering an Advanced Scan client without the Secure Print, as well as a lower entry level offering to be more competitive.

 

Vince

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