The previously unreported outreach is the most extensive by
an antitrust authority since the companies announced the acquisition in April,
according to a person familiar with the matter.
Microsoft declined to comment, and Nuance did not respond to
a request for comment.
After minimal review, the US Department of Justice in June
and the Australian Competition Commission in October said they would not
contest the deal. The companies filed for approval from the European
Commission's competition bureau last month, and the regulator has until
December 21 to clear the deal or open a bigger investigation.
The companies had expected to close the deal by the end of
this year, but said last month the timeline could slip to early next year.
The questionnaire asks whether Microsoft and Nuance are
competitors and whether a tie-up could affect clients and rivals, including
whether Microsoft could favour Nuance over competing services.
Nuance primarily sells transcription technology that is
popular among doctors and call centres that want to automate note-talking.
Analysts view the deal as bolstering Microsoft's presence in the healthcare
market, and bringing it new voice and medical data to train artificial
intelligence offerings in health, speech and biometric security.
Like other big tech companies, Microsoft for years has grown
its business through acquisitions, such as in advertising and video gaming. But
in the last decade, Microsoft has avoided the target that recently has dogged
its competitors Alphabet's Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon, all of which
are facing antitrust lawsuits and investigations on numerous issues.
Steven Weber, a University of California Berkeley professor
studying the intersection of technology and health care, said possible concerns
about the pending deal could include Microsoft forcing its Office suite on
Nuance customers by bundling them together.
Nuance has said it serves 77 percent of US hospitals.
A key to its success has been has ensuring in deals with
customers that it could use their data to advance its voice recognition
systems, according to former chief executive Paul Ricci and another former
employee.
For instance, a Nuance contract with Augusta University
Medical Center, obtained by Reuters this year through a public records request,
reads, "Customer shall provide Nuance access to voice and text data...and
grants Nuance a perpetual, royalty-free license to copy, use and analyse such
data for speech recognition research."
Big cloud vendors such as Amazon and Microsoft typically do
not have unfettered access to customers' data for research and development. But
the opportunity to acquire those relationships and data explains Microsoft's
interest in Nuance, the former employees said.
Other providers of health transcription technologies include
3M and Philips. © Reuters