Microsoft gets EU nod for $19.7 billion Nuance acquisition

US and AUS had already approved the deal prior

Microsoft has gained approval from The European Commission for a potential acquisition of Nuance Communications, which deals in speech recognition and AI.

The Redmond technology giant's $19.7 billion bid to buy the company had been approved by regulators in both US and Australia, but the UK commission has said it would study the deal for potential concerns.

"Based on its market investigation," The EU commission expressed in a press release.

"The Commission found that the transaction, as notified, would not significantly reduce competition in the transcription software, cloud services, enterprise communication services, customer relationship management, productivity software and PC operating systems markets," It added.

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The commission examined the deal's horizontal overlaps between the deal and the transcription software market, the link between Microsoft's cloud gaming and Nuance's transcription software, the use of data and Microsoft's proposed products with the technology and the transcription software market.

It concluded that the deal, "would raise no competition concerns on any of the markets examined in the EEA and cleared the case unconditionally."

Nuance software is used in 77% of hospitals in the US and the company is also known for its work with Siri, Apple's virtual assistant, which it helped launch in 2011.

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EU was of the opinion that Microsoft and Nuance products were very different from one another and when combined, still left enough room for strong competition from other player's in the market. It also saw no threat to competition in markets for transcription software, AI, cloud services, enterprise solutions and PC operating systems.