Speech-recognition software vendor Nuance Communications has announced it will open an Open Voice Services European Center of Excellence to meet the needs of global mobile operators.

The company said the center will have technical teams focused on all aspects of R&D of Nuance Voicemail-to-Text, Nuance Voice Control, Open Voice Search, Mobile Messaging, and voice services for the Connected Car. Although the company has a strong presence in the European speech market, it has experienced significant demand for its emerging suite of services that target free-form, unstructured speech input.

Vlad Sejnoha, chief speech scientist at Nuance, said: "In addition to our current internal efforts and additional innovation investments recently announced with IBM, we expect this new Center of Excellence to ensure Nuance's voice services team achieves a level of innovation second to none in the industry."

Last month the company and IBM have formed a partnership to provide advanced speech recognition applications for enterprises, consumers, and partners. The alliance builds on a technology and IP collaboration between the companies announced earlier this year.