Dictaphone was an American company founded byAlexander Graham Bell that produceddictation machines. It is now adivision ofNuance Communications, based in Burlington,Massachusetts.
Although the name "Dictaphone" is atrademark, it has becomegenericized as a means to refer to anydictation machine.
TheVolta Laboratory was established byAlexander Graham Bell in Washington, D.C. in 1881. When the Laboratory's sound-recording inventions were sufficiently developed with the assistance ofCharles Sumner Tainter and others, Bell and his associates set up theVolta Graphophone Company, which later merged with theAmerican Graphophone Company (founded in 1887) which itself later evolved intoColumbia Records[1] (founded as the Columbia Phonograph Company in 1889).
The name "Dictaphone" was trademarked in 1907 by theColumbia Graphophone Company, which soon became the leading manufacturer of such devices. This perpetuated the use for voice recording ofwax cylinders, which had otherwise been eclipsed bydisc-based technology. Dictaphone was spun off into a separate company in 1923 under the leadership of C. King Woodbridge.[2]
In March 1932, a Dictaphone was used to solve the kidnapping ofPeoria, Illinois physician James Parker. TheSecret Six, a powerful, wealthy vigilante organization based inChicago, suspected Peoria attorney Joseph Persifull of involvement in the crime and placed listening devices in his office connected to a Dictaphone in the building's basement. Using evidence gathered through that means, as well as a confession reportedly beaten out of Persifull's co-conspirator, James Betson, the Secret Six helped to convict eight people in the kidnapping, with sentences ranging from five to 25 years.[3]
In 1947, having relied on wax-cylinder recording to the end ofWorld War II, Dictaphone introduced itsDictabelt technology. This cut a mechanical groove into aLexan plastic belt instead of into a wax cylinder. The advantage of the Lexan belt was that recordings were permanent and admissible in court. Eventually IBM introduced a dictating machine using an erasable belt made of magnetic tape which enabled the user to correct dictation errors rather than marking errors on a paper tab. Dictaphone in turn added magnetic recording models while still selling the models recording on the Lexan belts. Machines based onmagnetic tape recording were introduced in the late seventies, initially using the standardcompact (or "C") cassette, but soon, in dictation machines, usingmini-cassettes ormicrocassettes instead. Using smaller cassette sizes was important to the manufacturer for reducing the size of portable recorders.
Walter D. Fuller became the director of the company in 1952.[4] In 1969 he was appointed as chairman.[5]
In Japan,JVC was licensed to produce machines designed and developed by Dictaphone. Dictaphone and JVC later developed thepicocassette, 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". Therecording medium did not need to be moved from where the dictation took place to the location such as a typing pool where the typists were located. 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. One version calculated each typist'sturnaround time and allocated the next piece of dictation accordingly.
Dictaphone was prominent in the provision ofmulti-channel recorders, used extensively in the emergency services to record emergency telephone calls (to numbers such as 911, 999, 112) and subsequent conversations.
Additionally, Dictaphone at one point expanded its product line to market a line of electronic (desktop and portable) calculators.
In 1979, Dictaphone was purchased byPitney Bowes and kept as a wholly owned but independentsubsidiary.
Dictaphone bought Dual Display Word Processor, a stiff competitor toWang Laboratories, the industry leader.[citation needed]
In 1982, it marketed aword processor fromSymantec. The hardware sold for $5,950 in 1982. The software was an additional $600.[6] The advent of the personal computer,MS-DOS, and general-purpose word-processing software saw the demise of the dedicated word-processor, and the division was closed.
In 1995, Pitney Bowes sold Dictaphone to the investment group Stonington Partners of Connecticut for a reported $462 million.[7] Dictaphone thereafter sold a range of products that includedspeech-recognition andvoicemail software with limited success as the market only existed among some early adopters despite its vertical markets' enhancements.
In 2000, Dictaphone was acquired by the then-leading Belgian voice-recognition and translation companyLernout & Hauspie for nearly $1 billion. Lernout & Hauspie provided the voice-recognition technology for Dictaphone's enhanced voice-recognition-based transcription system.[8] Soon after the purchase, however, theSEC raised questions about Lernout & Hauspie's finances, focusing on the supposedly skyrocketing income reported from its East Asian endeavors. Subsequently, the company and all its subsidiaries, including Dictaphone, were forced intobankruptcy protection.[9]
In early 2002, Dictaphone emerged from bankruptcy as aprivately held organization, with Rob Schwager as itschairman andCEO.[10][11] In 2004, it was split into three divisions:
In June 2005, Dictaphone Corporation announced the sale of its Communications Recording Systems toNICE Systems for $38.5 million.[12] This was considered a great bargain in the industry[13][failed verification] and came after NICE was ordered to pay Dictaphone $10 million in settlements related to apatent-infringement suit in late 2003.[14][15]
In September 2005, Dictaphone sold its IVS business outside the United States to a privateSwiss group around its former VP Martin Niederberger, who formed Dictaphone IVS AG (later Calison AG) inUrdorf,Switzerland and developed "FRISBEE", the first hardware-independent dictation-management software system with integrated speech-recognition andworkflow management. In 2008, iSpeech AG took over the activities and products of the former Calison AG.
In February and March 2006, the remainder of Dictaphone was sold for $357 million toNuance Communications (formerlyScanSoft), ending its short tenure as an independent company that had begun in 2002. This, in effect, closed a circle of events, as Dictaphone had been sold to Lernout & Hauspie prior to L&H's bankruptcy which resulted in Dictaphone becoming an independent company.[16]
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.[17]
The election of Walter D. Fuller as a director of the Dictaphone Corporation ...
The election of Donald D. Marsden to the newly-created post of vice president for finance and administration in the Dictaphone Corporation was announced yesterday by Walter W. Finke, president. Mr. Marsden also was made a board
The Dictaphone Corporation, a unit of Pitney Bowes, has introduced a word processor that would give users the ability to retrieve electronically stored information by typing questions in English
Dictaphone Corporation announced today that it has signed a definitive agreement with NICE Systems (NASDAQ: NICE) under which NICE will acquire the assets of Dictaphone's Communication Recording Systems (CRS) business for $38.5 million.
