For years, attendees to official VON show parties have had the privilege of witnessing the amazing dance moves of Brough Turner, Senior VP of Technology, CTO and co-founder of NMS Communications Corporation. Aside from his apparent mastery of all known 20th century dance techniques, Brough (rhymes with “gruff” even though he isn’t at all) is a real pioneer and one of the most knowledgeable people you’ll ever find in this industry.
Turner started off with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then spent 13 years in engineering and engineering management at Block Engineering, Inc. and Digilab, Inc. (an analytical instruments manufacturer), both subsidiaries of Bio-Rad Laboratories. He was involved with the design of analytical and biomedical instruments, relying heavily on computers for digital signal processing, pattern recognition and scientific visualization.
Turner and two of his Digilab associates–Steve Simonoff and Wendell Bishop–decided it was time to start their own company. Their original business plan was for a series of products that would make PCs easier to use. They picked the name Natural Systems Corporation for their business, but they soon discovered there was already a gardening firm registered in Massachusetts with the same name. At the last moment, the new company’s name was changed to Natural MicroSystems, or “NMS.”
The three founders, working without pay, realized that they needed to recruit a credible executive with prior P&L experience before they’d be able to raise money to support their new company. After recruiting for three months, they eventually talked Charlie Foskett (also from Digilab) into joining them.
NMS’ first office space was a two-room office suite (all of 325 square feet!) on the second floor at 19 Brook Road in Needham, Massachusetts. They moved in May 16, 1983. The foursome closed their first round financing in March 1984. With funding secured, they completed, productized and named their first product, Watson.
Watson was a sophisticated personal communications assistant consisting of the world’s first DSP-based speech board and software. (It employed one of the earliest DSPs, the Texas Instruments TMS320C10.) Watson included a phone book (displayed as a rolodex
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