Nuance Recognized with 2006 Growth Strategy Leadership Award for Automotive Offerings

Nuance Communications received the 2006 Growth Strategy Leadership Award from Frost & Sullivan, a global business consulting company. The award recognizes Nuance's innovative technology and leadership position in the automotive telematics and infotainment market.

As a supplier of speech components to automotive OEMs and vendors, Nuance Communications offers an integrated suite of technologies and services to enable voice-activated dialing, voice destination entry for navigation systems, vehicle command and control, and in-vehicle entertainment systems.

"Speech is critical to the development of next-generation automotive infotainment systems, enabling minimal driver intervention for increased convenience and greater driving safety," said Brett Gascoine, director, European Best Practices Research Group, Frost & Sullivan. "Nuance has established a prominent position in this market and is setting the standard for speech technology in the automotive environment."

Nuance Automotive solutions can be found worldwide in more than five million cars, including multiple models from Ford Motor Company. Ford selected Nuance's embedded speech solutions for speech-enabled navigation and entertainment control, as well as voice-activated dialing for its models. The company introduced its vehicle voice control system in 1999, and decided to include speech recognition as an option in all of its new models beginning in 2005.