Microsoft's $19.7-billion Nuance acquisition receives EU antitrust approval

• UK regulators are still looking into the deal

• Nuance is the second-biggest acquisition of Microsoft after LinkedIn

The European Union’s antitrust regulators on Tuesday granted Microsoft Corp unconditional approval for its $19.7 billion acquisition bid for artificial intelligence and speech technology company Nuance Communications Inc, which is expected to boost the tech giant’s presence in cloud services for healthcare.

The deal is Microsoft’s second-biggest acquisition after it bought LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in 2016

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The European Commission said it has reached a conclusion that there will be no significant reduction in competition in markets for transcription software, cloud services, enterprise communication services, operating systems and other products if the deal goes ahead and gave a green signal without conditions.

“The proposed transaction would raise no competition concerns on any of the markets examined in the European Economic Area,” the Commission said.

Shifting to AI and regulation

In April, Microsoft announced it would acquire Nuance to strengthen its presence in cloud services for the healthcare vertical — where Nuance developed several clinician-support products like tech for documenting telehealth visits, a speech recognition tool for clinical documentation, and AI-powered radiology reporting.

The Massachusetts-based Nuance serves about 77% of U.S. hospitals and helped launch Apple’s Siri virtual assistant.

The Commission said it had examined issues including the overlap between “the activities of Nuance and Microsoft in the markets for transcription software” and found that the two companies offer “very different products” that, when combined, would continue to face intense competition from other players.

ALSO READ: UK antitrust watchdog looks into Microsoft's $19.7-billion Nuance deal

Although Microsoft has already received regulatory approval from the United States and Australia, UK antitrust regulator, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), last week said it is still looking into the deal.

Tech companies are ramping up acquisitions of AI-focused firms to integrate AI and machine learning into their products and services.

Oracle earlier this week said it would acquire medical information technology services provider Cerner Corp for $28.3 billion to strengthen its presence in the healthcare sector.

Picture Credit: Medical Device Network