What Microsoft will do in healthcare with Nuance AI
Microsoft acquired Nuance, a pioneer of speech recognition, for approximately $ 20 billion. So the tech giant seeks to bolster its cloud strategy for healthcare
Microsoft will acquire Nuance Communications, a leading developer of speech recognition and artificial intelligence technologies, for a $ 19.7 billion deal, including net debt.
The technological giant led by Satya Nadella communicated this with an official note .
Nuance, based in Burlington, Massachusetts, builds software for industries ranging from healthcare to the automotive industry. Its speech recognition technology helped launch Siri, Apple's assistant.
As Bloomberg points out, Microsoft has been trying to make its way into the healthcare industry by selling more cloud software to hospitals and doctors. Last May, the tech giant founded by Bill Gates unveiled an industry-specific cloud software package and also hired executives with medical backgrounds and researching machine learning and AI tools for areas including clinical trials.
Microsoft's $ 56 per share offering represents a 22.86% premium over Nuance's last close. Shares of Nuance were up nearly 23% in pre-market trading.
All the details.
MICROSOFT AIMS AT NUANCE AI
As Bloomberg first reported, Microsoft first contacted Nuance in December and is willing to pay around $ 56 per share for Nuance.
AI is technology's most important priority, and healthcare is its most urgent application. Together with @NuanceInc , we will put advanced AI solutions into the hands of professionals to drive better decision-making and create more meaningful connections. https://t.co/ipdP6qZTx9
– Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) April 12, 2021
"Nuance provides the level of artificial intelligence at the point of delivery of healthcare," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement, adding "Artificial intelligence is the most important priority of technology and healthcare is the its most urgent application ".
DETAILS OF THE OPERATION
Mark Benjamin will remain the chief executive officer of Nuance and will report to Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Cloud & AI at Microsoft.
THE SECOND BIGGEST ACQUISITION AFTER LINKEDIN
At $ 19 billion, Nuance will be Microsoft's second-largest acquisition, following the $ 27 billion purchase of LinkedIn in 2016.
WHAT NUNANCE COMMUNICATIONS DOES
Founded in 1992, Nuance Communications had 7,100 employees in September.
Nuance profits from the sale of tools for recognizing and transcribing speeches in doctor visits, customer service calls and voice messages.
The company therefore also and above all operates in the medical field. He has also already collaborated with Microsoft in 2019 on a project aimed at improving medical studies through AI technologies.
THE COMPANY'S ACCOUNTS
After several years of losses, Nuance made $ 29 million in net profit last year. The company reported net income of $ 7 million on revenue of approximately $ 346 million in the fourth quarter, with revenues down 4% year-on-year.
THE STRATEGY OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL COLOSSUS OF REDMOND
Microsoft has recently made numerous attempts to expand through acquisitions. Last year, the giant led by Satya Nadella considered buying the US operations of the video sharing app TikTok and six months ago it acquired the video game manufacturer Zenimax for $ 7.5 billion .
Without forgetting the interest that emerged last month for Discord, a chat for video game fans.
The purchase of Nuance could expand Microsoft's capabilities in voice software.
Microsoft already has tools that developers can use to enable applications to transcribe speech into written words, and it incorporates speech recognition into its products, such as the Bing search engine and the Teams communication app.
According to Bloomberg , as AI software improves in analyzing language and predicting medical needs, Nuance and Microsoft may be able to develop technology that looks for certain words in medical records to provide better recommendations for doctors to care for. patient.
ACQUISITIONS IN GOGO, UNLIKE FACEBOOK AND GOOGLE
As the Financial Times points out , Microsoft, which specializes in enterprise cloud computing services used by businesses and the government rather than consumers, has managed to avoid the political backlash that made major acquisitions more difficult for Facebook and Google.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/cosa-fara-microsoft-con-lintelligenza-artificiale-di-nuance/ on Mon, 12 Apr 2021 13:26:24 +0000.