British watchdog begins probing Microsoft's acquisition of AI speech specialist Nuance
(2021/12/13)
- Reference: 1639402196
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/12/13/cma_microsoft_nuance/
- Source link:
The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) [1]is to take a closer look at Microsoft's buy of talkative AI specialist Nuance.
Today's announcement follows [2]reports that the purchase, an all-cash transaction valued at $19.7bn [3]when announced in April 2021 , was set to get a nod from EU regulators.
To be clear, the CMA is only at the investigation stage and has invited comments from interested parties with a closing date of 10 January 2022. It is pondering if the results of the proposed acquisition will end up substantially hobbling competition and warrant a full blown enquiry.
[4]UK competition regulator to Meta's Facebook: Sell Giphy, we will not approve the purchase
[5]Privacy Sandbox saga continues: UK watchdog extracts more commitments from Google over ad tech
[6]Regulators on three continents probing Nvidia's $40bn purchase of Arm, CFO confirms
[7]UK watchdog launches full probe of Motorola Solutions' cop-comms deals on Emergency Services Network
US regulators have already [8]permitted the deal to go ahead, although a formal decision has yet to be made on this side of the Atlantic.
The acquisition is one of Microsoft's largest, second to [9]LinkedIn , which was snapped up for $26.2bn in 2016.
[10]
The plan is to plug the technology into the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare. Nuance's tech is focused on healthcare-optimised speech recognition to streamline the production of clinical documentation.
[11]
Microsoft and Nuance [12]buddied up in 2019 and, as part of that, Nuance agreed to migrate much of its internal infrastructure and hosted products to Azure.
The acquisition [13]announcement followed a few months later. It was expected to have closed by the end of this calendar year, subject to shareholder and regulatory approval.
[14]
With the CMA leaving the comments box open into January 2022, closure of the deal will roll on for a little longer. ®
Get our [15]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/microsoft-corporation-slash-nuance-communications-inc-merger-inquiry
[2] https://www.reuters.com/business/exclusive-eu-regulators-set-okay-16-bln-microsoft-nuance-deal-sources-say-2021-12-10/
[3] https://news.microsoft.com/2021/04/12/microsoft-accelerates-industry-cloud-strategy-for-healthcare-with-the-acquisition-of-nuance/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/30/uk_competition_regulator_facebook/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/26/cma_google/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/18/nvidia/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/25/cma_motorola_solutions_esn_probe/
[8] https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001002517/000119312521182121/d423848d8k.htm
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2016/06/13/microsoft_buys_linkedin_26bn/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Ybd8PXp5AmdlPAKCm1XJEAAAAEY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Ybd8PXp5AmdlPAKCm1XJEAAAAEY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://news.microsoft.com/2019/10/17/nuance-and-microsoft-partner-to-transform-the-doctor-patient-experience/
[13] https://news.microsoft.com/2021/04/12/microsoft-accelerates-industry-cloud-strategy-for-healthcare-with-the-acquisition-of-nuance/
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Ybd8PXp5AmdlPAKCm1XJEAAAAEY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Today's announcement follows [2]reports that the purchase, an all-cash transaction valued at $19.7bn [3]when announced in April 2021 , was set to get a nod from EU regulators.
To be clear, the CMA is only at the investigation stage and has invited comments from interested parties with a closing date of 10 January 2022. It is pondering if the results of the proposed acquisition will end up substantially hobbling competition and warrant a full blown enquiry.
[4]UK competition regulator to Meta's Facebook: Sell Giphy, we will not approve the purchase
[5]Privacy Sandbox saga continues: UK watchdog extracts more commitments from Google over ad tech
[6]Regulators on three continents probing Nvidia's $40bn purchase of Arm, CFO confirms
[7]UK watchdog launches full probe of Motorola Solutions' cop-comms deals on Emergency Services Network
US regulators have already [8]permitted the deal to go ahead, although a formal decision has yet to be made on this side of the Atlantic.
The acquisition is one of Microsoft's largest, second to [9]LinkedIn , which was snapped up for $26.2bn in 2016.
[10]
The plan is to plug the technology into the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare. Nuance's tech is focused on healthcare-optimised speech recognition to streamline the production of clinical documentation.
[11]
Microsoft and Nuance [12]buddied up in 2019 and, as part of that, Nuance agreed to migrate much of its internal infrastructure and hosted products to Azure.
The acquisition [13]announcement followed a few months later. It was expected to have closed by the end of this calendar year, subject to shareholder and regulatory approval.
[14]
With the CMA leaving the comments box open into January 2022, closure of the deal will roll on for a little longer. ®
Get our [15]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/microsoft-corporation-slash-nuance-communications-inc-merger-inquiry
[2] https://www.reuters.com/business/exclusive-eu-regulators-set-okay-16-bln-microsoft-nuance-deal-sources-say-2021-12-10/
[3] https://news.microsoft.com/2021/04/12/microsoft-accelerates-industry-cloud-strategy-for-healthcare-with-the-acquisition-of-nuance/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/30/uk_competition_regulator_facebook/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/26/cma_google/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/18/nvidia/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/25/cma_motorola_solutions_esn_probe/
[8] https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/0001002517/000119312521182121/d423848d8k.htm
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2016/06/13/microsoft_buys_linkedin_26bn/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Ybd8PXp5AmdlPAKCm1XJEAAAAEY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Ybd8PXp5AmdlPAKCm1XJEAAAAEY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://news.microsoft.com/2019/10/17/nuance-and-microsoft-partner-to-transform-the-doctor-patient-experience/
[13] https://news.microsoft.com/2021/04/12/microsoft-accelerates-industry-cloud-strategy-for-healthcare-with-the-acquisition-of-nuance/
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Ybd8PXp5AmdlPAKCm1XJEAAAAEY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Idle Bones
elsergiovolador
Biggest threat to the UK SMEs is tax avoidance. It's hard to compete if the other side has significantly lower tax burden.
Is CMA breathing at the HMRC neck?
That's the end of my screen reader then...
It uses Nuance to create the various voices the customer can have read the screen, so having that tech in the buttery, fat, fumble, & fuck up prone fingers of MS means that my screen reader will have to go elsewhere for suitable tech.
To give an idea of what a difference the quality of the voice tech makes, listen to the voice of NVDA versus Freedom Scientific's "Jaws". It's like the difference between hearing an almost real person versus Stephen Hawking's vox box.
*Sigh*