Microsoft’s ‘Warpath’: The $19.7 Billion Buyout Of Nuance Communications Could Be The Start Of An Acquisition Spree

Microsoft’s $19.7 billion acquisition of artificial intelligence speech recognition company Nuance Communications, the software giant’s largest since its $26 billion purchase of LinkedIn in 2016, may signal a new binge of takeovers aimed at buttressing cash-rich Microsoft’s presence in an array of enterprise and consumer-facing businesses. Microsoft had a cash pile of more than $130 billion as of December. Its acquisition of Nuance, which pioneered the software behind Apple’s Siri virtual assistant and now focuses on speech recognition and automation for medical providers, shows the breadth of CEO Satya Nadella’s ambitions to expand beyond Microsoft’s core enterprise software business, analysts say.