T9 predictive-text input developer purchased for $265M
Tegic might not be a household name, but it's a solid bet you've used their software -- the company is responsible for the T9 predictive-text input system that's installed in virtually every cellphone out there. That makes Tegic worth about $265 million, apparently, because that's how much voice-recognition firm Nuance just dished out to Time Warner for the company. (Disclosure: Time Warner is our parent company's parent company.) Nuance is on a buying spree lately, having bought VoiceSignal, BeVocal, and Dictaphone in the past year -- the goal is apparently to control much of how users interact with their phones, be it voice, touch, or text. Here's hoping Nuance doesn't make any sweeping changes while they chase that rainbow -- at this point we're so hard-wired for T9 that it's difficult to imagine that it's licensed software and not, say, a fundamental property of mathematics. 4663 5825, 4897.
[Via RCRWireless News]
