The EU regulator has until 21 December to approve the acquisition or initiate an in-depth investigation
Microsoft announced the Nuance deal in April this year. (Credit: NakNakNak from Pixabay)
EU’s antitrust regulator is reportedly seeking input on the concerns related to Microsoft’s $19.7bn acquisition of conversational artificial intelligence (AI) company Nuance Communications.
The regulator is looking to prepare a list of concerns through a questionnaire to customers and competitors associated with the deal, Reuters reported.
Through the questionnaire, it intends to know whether Microsoft and Nuance are competitors and how the deal could impact clients and rivals.
After announcing the deal in April this year, the two companies applied for approval from the European Commission’s competition bureau in November.
The EU regulator has until 21 December to approve the acquisition or initiate an in-depth investigation, the publication reported.
The acquisition was cleared by the US Department of Justice in June and the Australian Competition Commission in October.
At the time of the announcement of the deal, Microsoft and Nuance had anticipated to complete the transaction by the end of 2021.
Last month, the two companies revealed that the deal could be closed in early 2022.
If completed, the deal will be become Microsoft’s second-largest transaction, after its $26.2bn acquisition of LinkedIn in 2016.
The transaction is aimed at speeding up its industry cloud strategy for healthcare, as Nuance’s solutions are said to be used by 77% of hospitals in the US.
Since 2019, Nuance has been in partnership with Microsoft to transform the doctor-patient experience.
Nuance’s offerings include speech recognition and AI for multiple sectors. It provided a speech recognition engine for Siri, the virtual assistant of Apple.
The company’s products include the Dragon Ambient eXperience, PowerScribe One, and Dragon Medical One.
Nuance announced a merger with rival speech application provider ScanSoft, a spin-off of Xerox, in 2015.