Apr 13, 2021 3:00 AM PT Microsoft on Monday announced it is purchasing Nuance Communications, a natural language to computer processing company, in a deal valued at $19.7 billion. In the all-cash transaction, Microsoft will acquire all of Nuance's outstanding stock for US$56 a share, a 23 percent premium over the share price at the close of the market last Friday. The deal, which is Microsoft's largest since it acquired LinkedIn in 2016 for more than $26 billion, is expected to close at the end of the calendar year. Mark Benjamin will remain CEO of Nuance and report to Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of cloud and artificial intelligence at Microsoft, the Redmond, Wash. company said in a statement.