Microsoft today takes an important step in its interest to increase its offering of cloud services focused on the healthcare industry with the purchase of Nuance in a transaction valued at about $ 19.7 billion, equivalent to paying $ 56.00 per share. , a 23 percent premium over the company’s closing price last Friday.
Nuance is a veteran technology company specializing in cloud based conversational artificial intelligence and clinical ambient intelligence solutions for healthcare organizations.
It so happens that all of Nuance’s leading voice-related healthcare solutions are built on Microsoft Azure, Microsoft’s cloud solutions platform.
Given the good harmony that has existed all these years between both companies, it was foreseeable that at any moment the acquisition of Nuance could take place to continue growing under the Microsoft umbrella, a common operation between the main technology companies.
In addition, it is Microsoft’s second largest buyout after the acquisition of LinkedIn in 2016 for about $ 26 billion, coming at the most appropriate time, where voice technologies based on deep learning are coming to the fore. surprising levels of precision, given constant improvements, also having a greater presence throughout the technology industry.
According to Microsoft’s statement of intent:
The acquisition will double Microsoft’s Total Addressable Market (TAM) in the healthcare provider space, raising the company’s healthcare TAM to nearly $ 500 billion. Nuance and Microsoft will deepen their existing commitments to the expanded partner ecosystem, as well as the highest standards of privacy, security and data compliance
Other Microsoft professional services will also be strengthened
But in addition to solutions focused on the healthcare sector, other Nuance solutions are also aimed at the participation of private users on a number of platforms, giving technology support to Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant, for example. , or they even own Loquendo, known at the time among end users for providing voice messages based on facilitated texts, and which they acquired in 2011.
So looking ahead:
Beyond healthcare, Nuance brings expertise in artificial intelligence and customer engagement solutions through Interactive Voice Response (IVR), virtual assistants, and digital and biometric solutions to companies around the world in all industries. This expertise will be combined with the breadth and depth of the Microsoft cloud, including Azure, Teams, and Dynamics 365, to deliver next-generation customer engagement and security solutions.
It only remains for the acquisition to begin to bear its first fruits.
More information: Microsoft
