The European Commission on Tuesday granted Microsoft unconditional antitrust approval for its $16 billion (roughly Rs. 1,20,525 crore) bid for synthetic intelligence and speech know-how firm Nuance Communications.
The deal is Microsoft’s second largest after its $26.2 billion (roughly Rs. 1,98,070 crore) LinkedIn buy in 2016, and would increase its presence in cloud providers for healthcare.
It has already regulatory approval within the United States and Australia, and Reuters reported earlier this month it was set to obtain EU approval.
The Commission mentioned its investigation into the deal had concluded that it might not considerably scale back competitors in markets for transcription software program, cloud providers, enterprise communication providers, PC working methods, and different merchandise.
“The proposed transaction would raise no competition concerns on any of the markets examined in the European Economic Area,” the Commission mentioned.
US-based Nuance serves 77 p.c of US hospitals and helped launch Apple’s Siri digital assistant.
The Commission mentioned it had examined points together with the overlap between Microsoft and Nuance’s transcription software program actions, and located that they provided “very different products” that, when mixed, would proceed to face robust competitors from different gamers.
Tech firms have ramped up acquisitions of AI-focused corporations as extra combine this know-how into their services and products.
© Thomson Reuters 2021