Nuance is officially dropping support for Dragon 13 Premium in the New Year. For a product that was released in 2014 and has been updated twice since (to Professional Individual versions 14 and 15), that’s no big surprise; however, it continues to be sold online so unless you have a very specific need for it, nobody should buy a new copy now. I’ve also heard some anecdotal rumblings from several users that 13 Premium has had some reliability issues following some recent Windows 10 updates. Here’s Nuance’s statement:
“Dragon Premium is being discontinued.
With the new, simplified configuration of Dragon desktop solutions, Dragon Premium 13 will be discontinued and withdrawn from the market. Because customers purchasing Dragon Premium 13 own a perpetual license to the solution, they may continue using it. However, Nuance will no longer provide support or updates for the solution after January 1, 2019. Additionally, patches or upgrades that individual consumers or organizations apply to computers running these solutions (e.g. operating system patches) could potentially cause the solutions to stop functioning or function in an unintended manner.”
The company has been offering steep discounts on an upgrade to 15 Professional Individual to customers using 13 Premium via email or the built-in Update Manager. Interestingly, they mention the offer is valid until October 31, 2018 – it’s around this time of year that I would have expected a whole new version of Dragon to appear, so maybe they are holding off for another year. This could make sense, as version 15 is currently very stable and has recently received a welcome update.
Nuance’s reference to “the new, simplified configuration of Dragon desktop solutions” signifies that the Dragon Professional Individual branding will remain consistent across both the PC and Mac products. This means the Dragon NaturallySpeaking name will finally bite the dust after 21 years – no bad thing, given the confusion the different names for these similar products can cause.
TRAINING YOUR DRAGON with SCOTT BAKER 