[MV] Andy Taylor leaves Nuance

[Andrew Taylor]

Hello All,

While this is not the normal kind of posting for MacVoice, I thought it might be of interest to some of you.
The subscribers to this list have also been very  supportive of MacSpeech's efforts over the last decade and we did appreciate it. (Yes, I count complaints and anything said as help - it helped us try to focus and fix what was important to you, even if we did not always succeed to the level you wanted.)

Thanks
Andy Taylor
Founder of MacSpeech

> Hello Founders,
> 
> I wish to thank you all for the support and encouragement (and slaps upside the head when we needed it) that you have given MacSpeech over the last decade. Looking back, I am reminded that the Founder's T-shirt owners had a lot to do with the success of MacSpeech. Some of you even chose to participate formally as stockholders in the company.
> 
> I would like to summarize a tiny bit of the history that led to this point - the point of leaving Nuance and letting the new parent company take charge. I was part of the team at Articulate Systems that delivered the only discrete dictation product for the Macintosh, a product called PowerSecretary, back in the early 1990s. I founded MacSpeech later that decade when interest in the Macintosh platform was waning. We sold $99 T-shirts as part of the company's original funding efforts (Thank You!). Together, your efforts and the company's, we sparked interest in the market again, producing the continuous speech recognition products for the Macintosh from IBM and MacSpeech. Over the next decade we all nurtured the market and made it grow to the point where the leader in the speech recognition industry, Nuance, took an interest in the Macintosh market and acquired MacSpeech.
> 
> The integration of MacSpeech and its products into Nuance and their product family was essentially completed with the recent introduction of Dragon Dictate 2.0 for the Macintosh. The Macintosh community now has a world class dictation product with the solid team from MacSpeech behind it and big company resources to support them. I hope you will join me in applauding and supporting their efforts as they continue to refine the products and strive to meet your needs and desires in the years ahead.
> 
> After a short rest, to fix porches and batten down the hatches for winter, I am moving on to discover "the next big thing" that the Mac community desires where an entrepreneurial passion is needed for success. If you have suggestions, I welcome your input. I relish opportunities where giants fear to tread. (possibly T-shirts will be involved :)) You will find me at the MacTech Conference in November, at Macworld next year, LinkedIn and on Facebook.
> 
> Till we meet again,
> Andrew Taylor
> A dreamer and Founder of MacSpeech, Inc.
>