UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION Washington, D.C. 20549 _______________________________ Form 10-K (Mark One) ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 For the fiscal year ended September 30, 2012 OR o TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 For the transition period from to Commission file number 0-27038 NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS, INC. (Exact name of Registrant as Specified in its Charter) Delaware 94-3156479 (State or Other Jurisdiction of (I.R.S. Employer Incorporation or Organization) Identification No.) 1 Wayside Road 01803 Burlington, Massachusetts (Address of Principal Executive Offices) (Zip Code) Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (781) 565-5000 SECURITIES REGISTERED PURSUANT TO SECTION 12(b) OF THE ACT: Title of Each Class Name of Each Exchange on Which Registered Common stock, $0.001 par value NASDAQ Stock Market LLC SECURITIES REGISTERED PURSUANT TO SECTION 12(g) OF THE ACT: None Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes No o Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act. Yes o No Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant: (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes No o Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically and posted on its corporate Web site, if any, every Interactive Data File required to be submitted and posted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§ 232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit and post such files). Yes No o Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of Registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K. Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer” and “smaller reporting company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one): Large accelerated filer Accelerated filer o Non-accelerated filer o Smaller reporting company o (Do not check if a smaller reporting company) Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes o No The aggregate market value of the outstanding common equity held by non-affiliates of the Registrant as of the last business day of the Registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter was approximately $5.3 billion based upon the last reported sales price on the Nasdaq National Market for such date. For purposes of this disclosure, shares of Common Stock held by officers and directors of the Registrant and by persons who hold more than 5% of the outstanding Common Stock have been excluded because such persons may be deemed to be affiliates. This determination of affiliate status is not necessarily conclusive. The number of shares of the Registrant’s Common Stock, outstanding as of October 31, 2012, was 312,423,563. DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE Portions of the Registrant’s definitive Proxy Statement to be delivered to stockholders in connection with the Registrant’s 2013 Annual Meeting of Stockholders are incorporated by reference into Part III of this Form 10-K. NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS, INC. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PART I Item 1. Business 1 Item 1A. Risk Factors 5 Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments 14 Item 2. Properties 15 Item 3. Legal Proceedings 15 Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures 15 PART II Item 5. Market for the Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities 16 Item 6. Selected Financial Data 17 Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations 17 Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures about Market Risk 45 Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data 46 Item 9. Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure 100 Item 9A. Controls and Procedures 100 Item 9B. Other Information 100 PART III Item 10. Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance 101 Item 11. Executive Compensation 101 Item 12. Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters 101 Item 13. Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence 101 Item 14. Principal Accountant Fees and Services 101 PART IV Item 15. Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules 102 Table of Contents PART I This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that, if they never materialize or if they prove incorrect, could cause our consolidated results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking, including statements pertaining to: our future revenue, cost of revenue, research and development expense, selling, general and administrative expenses, amortization of intangible assets and gross margin, earnings, cash flows and liquidity; our strategy relating to our segments; the potential of future product releases; our product development plans and investments in research and development; future acquisitions and anticipated benefits from acquisitions; international operations and localized versions of our products; our contractual commitments; our fiscal 2013 revenue and expense expectations and legal proceedings and litigation matters. You can identify these and other forward-looking statements by the use of words such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “expects,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “intends,” “potential,” “continue” or the negative of such terms, or other comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements also include the assumptions underlying or relating to any of the foregoing statements. Our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including those set forth in Item 1A of this Annual Report under the heading “Risk Factors.” All forward-looking statements included in this document are based on information available to us on the date hereof. We will not undertake and specifically decline any obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Item 1. Business Overview We are a leading provider of voice and language solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Our solutions are used in healthcare, mobile, consumer, enterprise customer service, and imaging markets. We offer market-leading accuracy, natural language understanding capability, domain knowledge and implementation capabilities, built on our significant, long-term investments in research and development. Our solutions are based on our proprietary voice and language platform and are used every day by millions of people and thousands of businesses for tasks and services such as requesting information from a phone-based self-service solution, dictating medical records, searching the mobile Web by voice, entering a destination into a navigation system, or working with PDF documents. We offer our solutions to our customers in a variety of ways, including through products, hosting, professional services and maintenance and support. Our product revenues include embedded original equipment manufacturers ("OEM") royalties, traditional enterprise licensing, term-based enterprise licensing and consumer-based sales. Our hosting revenues are primarily generated through on-demand service models, comprised of hosted transaction-based pricing arrangements that typically have multi-year terms. Hosting and maintenance and support revenues are recurring in nature as our customers need to use our products on a repeat basis to handle their needs in medical transcription, enterprise customer service and mobile connected services. We leverage our global professional services organization and our extensive network of partners to design, develop and deploy innovative solutions for businesses and organizations around the globe. We market and sell our products directly through a dedicated sales force, through our e-commerce website and also through a global network of resellers, including system integrators, independent software vendors, value-added resellers, hardware vendors, telecommunications carriers and distributors. We have built a world-class portfolio of intellectual property, technologies, applications and solutions through both internal development and acquisitions. We expect to continue to pursue opportunities to expand our assets, geographic presence, distribution network and customer base through acquisitions of other businesses and technologies. We are organized in four segments: Healthcare, Mobile