Apple (AAPL) Quietly Bought Speech Recognition Service Novauris

Overnight, numerous tech publication reported that Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) bought speech recognition (ASR) technology company Novauris Technologies.

Apple somewhat confirmed the deal to TechCrunch commenting: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.” Also, when TechCrunch called Novauris' offices they answered "Apple."

The deal, while never announced, was said to have taken place last year. The Novauris team has been working to help Apple improve its Siri voice assistant service since last fall.

Some are already pointing out the competitive nature of the deal related to Nuance, which provides the backbone for Apple's Siri. However, at least one analyst doesn't see a change to the Apple/Nuance relationship amid the deal. "We believe there is no change to NUAN/AAPL's longstanding relations," Oppenheimer's Shaul Eyal said. "Clearly, AAPL is refining Siri's database searches and fact retrieval through Novauris, but the underlying voice transcription and open ended dictation is NUAN-based and not something to be easily replaced."

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