Votrax

Votrax International, Inc. (originally the Vocal division of Federal Screw Works), or just Votrax, was a speech synthesis company located in the Detroit, Michigan area from 1971 to 1996. It began as a division of Federal Screw Works from 1971 to 1973. In 1974, it was given the Votrax name (taken from the name of its first commercial product, the model VS4 "Votrax") and moved to Troy, Michigan and, in 1980, split off of its parent company entirely and became Votrax International, Inc., which produced speech products up until 1984.

In 1984, the company restructured itself as a commercial phone/speech audio-response/auto-answering systems company after downsizing some of the staff. In 1987, Votrax merged with Vynet Corp., a voice-recognition prompt pioneer. It remained Votrax inc. until about 1992, when it was renamed to or otherwise merged with Vysion, Inc., a maker of security cameras and other related devices. It remained 'Vysion Inc.' until the company declared bankruptcy in June 1994 following a court battle patent litigation loss against PATCO inc., and from the remains of the old company, restructured itself as 'Maxxar' inc in 1995. Maxxar was acquired by Open Solutions, LLC (then Open Solutions, Inc.), on February 24, 2004, and Open Solutions, LLC was acquired by Fiserv, Inc. on January 14, 2013. Maxxar owned the rights to the Votrax name, but the trademark lapsed on March 11, 2016.