Microsoft bought speech recognition company Nuance, paying nearly $ XNUMX billion in cash.
Nuance is the company that processes requests for Apple's Siri voice assistant.
Microsoft has announced that it has reached an agreement with Nuance. The deal, which pays $ 56 per share, represents a 23% increase over the closing price of Nuance shares last Friday.
The transaction is expected to close at the end of 2021, once the regulatory and shareholder procedures have been passed. Once completed, it will be Microsoft's second acquisition, after LinkedIn (in 2016, for $ 24 billion).
Microsoft is still working on other acquisitions and the next in line is said to be the Discord communications platform.
Nuance is known for its speech recognition systems, which allow computers to convert speech to text for further processing. This technology has been at the heart of Apple's voice assistant Siri since its inception, as recognized by Nuance in 2013, although it is unclear whether Apple is currently using Nuance's resources for processing or whether all the work is already been done within its own Apple.
Microsoft's interest in Nuance presumably stems from its significant presence in the healthcare segments, where its software is used to allow doctors and professionals to compile records simply by voice.
By some metrics, Nuance systems are used by over 55% of physicians, 75% of radiologists, and 77% of hospitals in the United States.
Microsoft assures that this acquisition will increase its 'Cloud for Healthcare' offering.
In addition, of course, Nuance Technology can be incorporated into Azure, Teams and Dynamics 365 platforms.
Ten years ago, we already published an article suggesting Apple buy Nuance. As always, Apple had other plans.
