This company came to my attention during my research for one reason. It has something that a lot of big winners have: A strong position in an intellectual property. Nuance has patents. A portfolio of them. Now patents in and of themselves are not the key to break out success and there are other ways to be successful, of course. But it has been the start for some big winners in the past. A strong patent portfolio and a history of strategic patent acquisition and development. A plan. Its sort of like cornering a market. But cornering a market is useless unless you have a demand for the product, service or technology. Go ahead and corner the market on used condoms to see what I mean.
Then, even with demand, a marginal product or singular product, the old one trick pony, has less chance of making the company and stockholders rich. They are like so many tech companies, mere flashes in the pan. So to weed them out, you need a company holding and acquiring a portfolio of patents in a real product, technology or service that has application to a broad market and an wide array of desirable products, both now and in the future.
Nuance has many products now considered the leaders in their markets. nuance.com They are generating revenue. They have been improving them over time as well as adding more features, applications and market segments organically and through acquisition. They have application in both the commercial and consumer markets, which qualifies as broad. They are part of the voice recognition function imbedded in products like personal communication devices, computer games, and now automobiles.
By no means is this the end of a good investment analysis. This is just as far as I can go tonight.
As far the future for VR and Nuance's role? Well I haven't even begun on that yet. Its so amazing, its hard to wrap one's mind around. I will save that one for the next time. |
