Nuance Announces Update to its Dragon Dictate Voice Recognition Software

From the pricing alone one would think Nuance was in the business of making as much money as they can before the features that already come with OS X puts them out of business.

Um, you get more for the boxed product, for the same price? Nice work, Nuance.

I've been using version 2.0 (now updated to v2.5.2) for about a year now, and I was totally floored just now to learn that Nuance wants the full $150 upgrade price, even though I'd only be upgrading 1 step in the development!

Seems crazy that their upgrade price is so high! Especially if you consider they will likely want the same amount in coming years with future upgrades.

Further, they just told me that my version (2.5.2), is not supported by Mac OS Mountain Lion (I haven't upgraded yet, is this true?).

What a way to keep your customers happy, Nuance! :mad:

As for me, I'm abandoning ship, and won't be paying such high prices to upgrade. I'll use this version while I can, then I anticipate other, more open developers (e.g., Google) will have dictation solutions that will not only be more reasonably priced, but will likely work better as well.

Knowing that the mic is central to a good voice rec experience, I don’t care for the digital download costing the same with no headset/packaging/backup media/manual as the physical version does!

I’d still choose the download to save waste, but a discount for the $35 headset (http://www.nuance.com/for-individuals/by-product/dragon-for-pc/dragon-accessories/index.htm) would be fair. (Or a free-with-shipping headset even.)

I do wish Apple would buy these guys or create their own. Apple has proven that well integrated speech is valuable, but I really don't like having it uploaded to a foreign server for processing. I have to believe that even the iPhone has enough power to do it, but there's clearly no excuse on a desktop.

I bought it, hoping it would be an improvement over 2.0, which is worthless, and for which I can get no support. I was lured in by the 90 day guarantee.

After downloading, I was advised I need iOS 10.7 or higher, which I don't have on my networked computer. So I tried to cancel with online help, and was told that I needed to call. Seeing as how the World will end in 3 months, I decided against that, since I don't want to spend the rest of my life on Nuance customer service.

Bottom line: they'll make it very difficult to get a refund.

Here's my chat with the so called "customer service" representative:

Please wait while we find an agent to assist you...
Hello, welcome to Nuance Chat. Please briefly describe your goal or question and I will connect you with the best resource to meet your objectives.
Thomas Green: Hi, how may I help you today?
Customer: i need a refund. just tried to update, and am told, after I download, that I need iOS 10.7 or greater. It would have been nice if that was somewhere in the advertising
Thomas Green: Our support department will be able to help you. In North America, you can reach our customer service team anytime between 9 AM and 6 PM Eastern Time, Monday to Friday. They can be reached by calling 1-800-654-1187
Customer: oh for God's sake. I don't want to call
Customer: and hold
Customer: i've tried using your so-called customer service before
Thomas Green: I understand what you are telling me, however, my role is to direct you to the best resource for your situation. The Customer Service Team will be best able to resolve your issue and they will be happy to assist you. You can contact them through the channels listed above.
Customer: I'll just cancel it through my credit card.
Customer: and review the product online, wherever I can
Customer: that would be a better use of my time
Customer: I almost didn;t buy due to prior bad customer service, but decided to do so based upon the 30 day guarantee
Thomas Green: I understand your concern however as I mentioned I above, my role is to direct you to the best resource for your situation. The Customer Service Team will be best able to resolve your issue and they will be happy to assist you. You can contact them through the channels listed above.
Customer: thanks for your help. they ought to change the box that says you can get help through chat, since it appears you probably only can help to sell
Customer: Is there anything you can do besides sell?
Thomas Green: As I mentioned above my role is to direct you to the best resource for your situation, I am only the operator.
Thomas Green: Our customer service department will be glad to assist you with your original inquiry
Customer: "I only work here?" Sorry to be an ass; I realize it's the company you work for, and not you, that I should complain about.
Thomas Green: Is there anything else I can help you with?
Customer: Apparently not, but thanks for asking
Thomas Green: Thank you for taking the time to chat with Nuance and have a great day!
Customer: i suppose you can pass on my disdain to your supervisor, for what that's worth

doesn't apple use nuance for their own implementation for 10.8's voice recognition? If so, who would buy this?

I haven't enabled 10.8 dictation because it asks to upload my contacts to a remote server. If Dictate runs locally, that's worth a lot.

Also, I find dictation pretty useless until it's able to translate while I'm speaking, similar to how Google does it.

That's exactly the point of buying Dragon Dictate. It is able to transcribe as you speak, without an internet connection. With ML's dictation, you have no idea what it is going to transcribe until you cancel the dictation. And it relies on an internet connection. If for some reason your connection drops out while using ML Dictation, everything you just said disappears into the ether.
If you plan on using dictation for school/business purposes, Dictation just isn't good enough. It only works for short things, like tweets, forum posts, etc.

So are there any real alternatives to Dragon Dictate? I am actually still using MacSpeech Dictate Medical because of the specific terminology I need to use; it would take an enormous effort to train the same vocabulary in Dragon Dictate 2.5 (and believe me, I tried: "C7-T1" always comes out as "Sea 7 T 1" no matter how many times I train it, and I have several hundred other words to also train).

For my uses, the included Dictation functions in Mountain Lion are just not sufficient.

Dragon Systems is a sad tale (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/business/goldman-sachs-and-a-sale-gone-horribly-awry.html). The founders of the company made the mistake of employing Goldman Sachs for advice on selling the company. In a nutshell, Dragon Systems and its shareholders lost everything, Goldman made millions in fees. Sound familiar? The brains behind Dragon dictation software are not employed with Nuance, a separate company that later bought Dragon at a bankruptcy auction.

From the link:
"Dragon Systems...was put up for sale at a bankruptcy auction. Visteon acquired some of Dragon’s technology. ScanSoft bought the bulk of it and went on to become a $7 billion giant, with a licensing deal with Apple. (The Bakers [developers of Dragon Systems] believe that some of their technology made its way into Siri.) ScanSoft later acquired — and assumed the name of — Nuance, another voice technology company."