Almost a year after announcing the purchase of Nuance last April, Microsoft has finally closed the operation. Many wonder why it has taken so long to do so, and the answer is clear: because of the problems that various regulatory entities have posed to the operation. Specifically, with those of the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. Over the last eleven months, the last three have gradually given their approval to the acquisition, but after that of the United States in June and that of the EU in December, the United Kingdom had yet to give its approval. approval, which did not arrive until last week.
The UK Competition and Markets Authority concluded, after reviewing the transaction, that the deal “does not raise a realistic possibility of a noticeable reduction in competition» in the country, in addition to confirming, as also happened in the EU, that Microsoft and Nuance offer very different products. When the confirmation came, Microsoft took just a couple of days to close an operation that it hoped would be completed before the end of 2021.
At the time of its announcement, the acquisition of Nuance, for which the company has paid 19.7 billion dollars, was the second largest in Microsoft’s history, behind the 26.2 billion dollars paid at the time by LinkedIn. But in the coming months it will be moved to the third if the purchase of Activision-Blizzard bears fruit, for which those from Redmond are going to pay a whopping 68.7 billion dollars.
Microsoft’s objective in buying Nuance is to enhance its presence in the health sector, thanks to the specific voice recognition products for this sector, among others, that Nuance offers. Thus, they will develop solutions that combine voice, Artificial Intelligence and cloud technologies for the health sector, but also for retail, telecommunications and financial services. Both companies already had an agreement prior to the operation, and had been collaborating for several years.
Mark Benjamin will remain CEO of Nuancealthough now it will report what happens to Scott Guthrie, Vice President of Microsoft Cloud and Artificial Intelligence. According to Guthrie and Scott, Microsoft and Nuance will focus on developing “advances in Artificial Intelligence, the cloud and the digital sector to create solutions that transform how we, as global citizens, work, shop, bank, interact and receive care«.
