Dictaphone

Dictaphone and JVC later developed the picocassette, released in 1985, which was even smaller than a microcassette but retained a good recording quality and duration.

Dictaphone also developed "endless loop" recording[citation needed] using magnetic tape, introduced in the mid-seventies as the "Thought Tank".

This was normally operated via a dedicated in-house telephone system, enabling dictation to be made from a variety of locations within the hospital or other organizations with typing pools.

Dictaphone bought Dual Display Word Processor, a stiff competitor to Wang Laboratories, the industry leader.

[7] Soon after the purchase, however, the SEC raised questions about Lernout & Hauspie's finances, focusing on the supposedly skyrocketing income reported from its East Asian endeavors.

[11] This was considered a great bargain in the industry[12][failed verification] and came after NICE was ordered to pay Dictaphone $10 million in settlements related to a patent-infringement suit in late 2003.

[13][14] In September 2005, Dictaphone sold its IVS business outside the United States to a private Swiss group around its former VP Martin Niederberger, who formed Dictaphone IVS AG (later Calison AG) in Urdorf, Switzerland and developed "FRISBEE", the first hardware-independent dictation-management software system with integrated speech-recognition and workflow management.

In February and March 2006, the remainder of Dictaphone was sold for $357 million to Nuance Communications (formerly ScanSoft), ending its short tenure as an independent company that had begun in 2002.

[15] In March 2007, Nuance acquired Focus Informatics and, with the intention of further expansion in its healthcare-transcription business, linked it with its Dictaphone division.