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STRATFORD -- Nuance Communications Inc. confirmed Monday it is closing the Dictaphone Corp. operation at 3191 Broadbridge Ave., but a spokesman said the company hopes to open a smaller office elsewhere in Stratford that would employ 25 to 30 research and development workers.

Those workers would be among the 70 people slated to lose their jobs by the Sept. 30 closing date, said Richard Mack, a spokesman for Burlington, Mass.-based Nuance, which bought Dictaphone in March.

To achieve Nuance's financial targets, Mack said, "There was a need to combine some of the core functions of the two operations." Most of the laid-off employees are back-office workers, in finance, accounting, human resources and legal services, Mack said. All will receive severance packages, he said.

Diane Toolan, director of economic and community development for Stratford, said city and state officials had worked with Nuance to offer incentives to stay.

"They were interested and polite, but Massachusetts was doing the same thing," Toolan said. "Nuance has a large corporate campus up there, and it became clear they were headed that way."

Toolan said Dictaphone had been a "wonderful corporate citizen" since building the 107,000-square-foot facility in 1988 with city and state incentives. At that time Dictaphone employed 400 people in Stratford. Toolan said the city is marketing the building, which Dictaphone sold in 2004 to Rugby Realty of New Jersey.

Dictaphone traces its history to the Volta Graphophone Co., opened in Bridgeport in 1888 by Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone. For decades Dictaphone was synonymous with dictating machines, but in recent years the company concentrated on developing voice transcription systems for hospitals and other medical facilities.

"The Dictaphone brand will remain a vital part of Nuance Communications," said Mack, noting that Dictaphone field offices in Florida, Massachusetts and Toronto will remain open, with about 450 employees. While the company is looking at Stratford to locate a new research and development office, Mack said a final decision has not been made. Former Dictaphone CEO Robert Schwager is now president of Nuance's Dictaphone division and is in the process of relocating to Burlington, Mass., Mack said.

According to a notice filed last week with the state Department of Labor, the layoffs began in April, soon after Nuance closed the purchase of Dictaphone, and will continue through September. Nuance's stock closed Monday at $8.86 a share, down 25 cents.