Microsoft announced a deal to buy speech recognition expert Nuance for $19.7 billion, an impressive 13x revenue and 23% above the closing stock price on Friday. Microsoft described the deal in terms of expanding its position in the healthcare industry, where Nuance is especially strong. Marketers will note there are plenty of other applications for what Nuance does.
Retail-focused CDP vendor Bridg has been purchased by Cardlytics, which provides targeted ads within bank loyalty programs. The announced price was an eyebrow-raising $350 million plus $100 to $300 million based on future performance. In addition to its CDP, Bridg has a 235 million consumer database that can identify otherwise-anonymous in-store retail buyers.
Bulk text messaging platform Community has raised $40 million from Salesforce Ventures, bringing total funding to $90 million. Community enables celebrities and organizations to send messages to people who sign up for them. What makes this special, I do not know.
Procrastinators of the world can throw a party whenever they get around to it: Google has once more pushed back complete third-party cookie deprecation. The new target is “early next year.” Reasons for the delay include concerns expressed by U.K. data regulator Information Commissioner’s Office, an ongoing inquiry by the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority, and widespread discontent in the advertising ecosystem.