SAN FRANCISCO, April 12 (Xinhua) -- Microsoft Corporation and Nuance Communications on Monday announced they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Microsoft will acquire Nuance for 56 U.S. dollars per share.

The price implies a 23 percent premium to the closing price of Nuance on Friday, April 9, in an all-cash transaction valued at 19.7 billion dollars, inclusive of Nuance's net debt, Microsoft said in an announcement.

According to the announcement, Microsoft has accelerated its efforts to provide industry-specific cloud offerings to support customers and partners as they respond to disruption and new opportunities. These efforts include the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, introduced in 2020, which aims to address the comprehensive needs of the rapidly transforming and growing healthcare industry.

"Nuance provides the AI layer at the healthcare point of delivery and is a pioneer in the real-world application of enterprise AI," said Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. "AI is technology's most important priority, and healthcare is its most urgent application."

The transaction has been unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both Nuance and Microsoft. The deal is intended to close by the end of this calendar year. Mark Benjamin will remain the CEO of Nuance, reporting to Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Cloud & AI at Microsoft, the announcement said.