A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry

Apple to buy Nuance? - wageslave

Posted: Aug 09, 2012

I caught this on "Proud to be a Medical Transcriptionist" Facebook page. Here is a link to the article, which is from the HDS Today and references a New York Times story and explains why Nuance is something Apple is considering buying and why.

http://hdstoday.com/?p=163

I am with the author of this article, who is Jay Vance, CMT:

"Of course, the question on the minds of those of us in the medical transcription field is what would all of this mean for our industry? Would the likes of Apple, Microsoft, or Google truly be interested in maintaining a presence in the medical transcription business, or would a more likely scenario be that the transcription divisions of Nuance and M*Modal are spun off or sold off separately? And in the latter scenario, who would be on the list of prospective buyers, and what impact would that have on career opportunities and compensation for healthcare documentation specialists?

Still more questions than answers, but don’t be shocked if we see some major market re-positioning in our space even before the year is out."

I would love to be part of a company that cares more about employees than investors, so would that be possible if they sold it off, or is it still going to be what I imagine as a bunch of executives in a boardroom sitting around deciding how low they can screw down our pay legally so they can get yet more profits?

I would love to be part of Apple Company - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
and use an Apple computer to work on, but then all the hospitals would have to upgrade to Apple and that is not going to happen overnight.

You won't be working for Apple - nm

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nm

Why? - On site MT

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Why would you love to be part of Apple? They treat their employees no better than other big corporations. Do some research and you will find that they're under fire for using child labor in China and India for the manufacture of I-Pods and I-Pads. My opinion is that none of the hospitals will upgrade to Apple computers; Epic and probably other EMR systems are designed for Windows and Microsoft applications.

Apple to buy Nuance? - countrybumpkin

[ In Reply To ..]
If Apple does buy Nuance, it is my opinion that they will buy it for their voice technology, not the medical transcription part, which leaves the medical transcription business of Nuance in the dust. Would some other company buy the MT business? I can bet Apple would pay enough money out to the shareholders that no one would really care about what happens to the transcription part of Nuance, except the client base, of course. Sounds like a complete mess to me. Now wouldn't that turn of events be interesting?

This article didn't mean that - Good grief ..

[ In Reply To ..]
You didn't understand the content of this article and now you go and spread rumors of Apple buying Nuance? The reading comprehension of some of you is shocking. Why just Apple? The article mentioned Micosoft and Google too! You are digging up a bunch of nothing only to get people worked up about nothing - geez.

You people? - wageslave

[ In Reply To ..]
I believe my reading comprehension is fine, thank you. Honestly, if you read the article in the NY Times Apple IS considering buying Nuance. I am not digging up anything, just wondering if our future could be better or worse if Apple or one of the other big guys bought Nuance. There is really no reason to get all het up, honestly. I do believe this kind of thing is on the cards with these MTSOs becoming so huge and multitentacled, with boards and shares on Wall Street, etc., and I also think it is worth discussing and talking about. I am not a mushroom, and I am capable of thinking about the possible future of my industry without getting "worked up about nothing." I hardly think it could get worse, could it? Please calm down and if you don't want to participate in the discussion, fine.

If you Google the phrase Apple buys Nuance.. sm - Me

[ In Reply To ..]
you will see that this is not a new consideration. In fact, a few years ago, Steve Wosniack (sp) said that Apple did indeed by Nuance, but he was speaking out of turn. Who knows what it will come to, but I happen to agree with the other posters who says this is ONE article and one person's opinion. However, there is old news (going back a couple of years) that Apple had considered this previously. That makes wonder why they didn't buy it then and why they would even consider it now (again, this article is not from anyone at Apple or anything like that). Apple could buy and sell Nuance 50 times over, so I doubt it's a big consideration for them.

I don't believe that Apple is, at this point, considering buying Nuance, but that is just MY opinion from everything else I read going back a couple of years. Believe what you want from that one article.

and PS, if you read the original NYT article/blog.. sm - Me

[ In Reply To ..]
and not just Jay Vance's blog, there are other companies that the author of NYT blog mentions, including Twitter and Sprint and a few others and not just Nuance. Lots of speculation; will be interesting to see if any of it comes true.

Good response, Me - wageslave

[ In Reply To ..]
I think you are right, but my point is I do think something like this will happen eventually since the speech rec is the part of Nuance that seems worth something to "investors." I know from my wages they are trying to screw them down something fierce, so if they are not positioning for a takeover of some kind, is it just the wave of the future that we can expect to be nickeled and dimed until we are all on food stamps and getting Medicaid?

I think any company as big as Apple.. sm - Me

[ In Reply To ..]
could come up with their own speech rec software. I believe the only reason Apple would buy Nuance is so Nuance wouldn't compete with them for the market share of voice rec technology.

I also think that most all MTSO are being nickeled and dimed by their clients/customers/hospitals because the customers don't really care about quality or MTs or anything like that. They care about getting the cheapest transcription done and that in turn is trickled down to the MT in the form of low wages. I don't think Nuance is doing anything different than any other MTSO; I think they are all in the same boat regardless of how many customers they have or how many employees. It's a sad case all around in my opinion, and the people losing out the most are patients.

MTSOs nickeled and dimed? - Not so

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Can you explain this then? "In the third quarter of fiscal 2012, Nuance recognized GAAP net income of $79.3 million." Don't waste your sympathy on the MTSOs, especially these huge ones. The reason our pay went down was because they wanted to get all the business and still make their bottom line look good, not because they had to compete. They created the competition by cutting wages, not vice versa. If you have profits that huge, there is no reason to give already low wage workers a "haircut" except for one reason, which is something which all these so-called pro business/pro capitalism entities share: Because they could. They take your benefits, they take your pension plan, they send your job overseas, whatever they want. Because they can. I take your point with some of the smaller MTSOs, but I believe those who are in good standing with their clients will keep their accounts, mainly because their clients actually care about quality.

If you carefully read the NYT article...Apple is NOT - see message

[ In Reply To ..]
...sayig it is considering buying Nuance. It was one person's (the columnist's) musings/opinion about which companies Apple *should consider* buying.

The first thing Apple would probably do is sell the parts of the company they don't want - sm

[ In Reply To ..]
Do you honestly think Apple wants to be an MTSO? That part of the company would be sold off so fast it would make your head swim! Who would buy it though? I don't think anyone would. In that case that would mean it would just be shut down.

Actually companies often buy parts of other companies but - probably would leave out the MT parts

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I think they probably would leave the MT part out. Aren't they just interested in the speech recognition part? The MT part means zilch to them.

Speech Rec - On Site MT

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Apple already does have their own speech rec software. I read those articles. The reason they might be interested in Nuance would be to keep someone else from getting their hands on Dragon. Nothing, from what I could see, makes any reference to medical transcription. I agree, there might have been some issues with reading comprehension and some jumping to conclusions.

I can see it now. The MT part ends up with MModal. That - would make perfect sense.

[ In Reply To ..]
Who knows, could be the reason Nuance sucked up Transcend. Soon there will be 1.

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