Spinvox, Spinvox, Spinvox. It promised so much but in the end delivered only so much. Like a latter-day Boo.com it hyped its magical voice-to-text service to the stars, apparently built on highly advanced technology, but in the end it has not lived up to the expectations it went all out to trumpet.

Nuance, possibly the leader in speech-to-text processing, and with 40+ carrier relationship, is reportedly picking up Spinvox in a $150 million sale which might be completed before Christmas. But there was no source on the Sunday Times story and Spinvox tells us they aren’t commenting at all. The Sunday Times is often used as a vehicle to float ‘sale rumours’ which are actually designed to flush out more bidders.

This story could have been different, but the exit route to another likely suitor was cut off when SimulScribe, the ‘scrappy’ voicemail transcription company, effectively exited in an exclusive deal with Ditech Networksthat worth as much as $17 million back in September. It could be argued that SimulScribe played it right, setting expectations at a realisable level and executing on that promise.