Nuance to acquire Zi for $35M

Nuance Communications Inc. said it will spend $35 million to acquire Zi Corp., ending a long-lasting – and contentious – courtship.
The developer of speech-recognition technology last summer was rebuffed by Zi after offering an unsolicited $40 million bid for the Canadian software developer. The rejection sparked a patent-infringement lawsuit in which Nuance claimed Zi violated a 2002 agreement between Zi and Tegic Communications Inc., which was acquired by Nuance in 2007.
The price tag marks a 73% premium on Wednesday’s closing price of Zi shares. Nuance said it hopes to integrate Zi’s text-input technologies with its own offerings, which include Tegic’s predictive-text solution.
Nuance and Zi “share a commitment to advance a portfolio of intelligent input and search capabilities on mobile devices in more than 80 languages and dialects to best serve our global customers and partners,” said Steve Chambers, Nuance’s president of mobile enterprise and customer service.
Shares of Nuance nosed down 13 cents, or more than 1%, following the announcement. Zi shares soared 22 cents, or 56%, to 61 cents each.