Tellme About It
Microsoft Agrees to Buy Maker of Voice-Recognition Software - New York Times
Microsoft said yesterday that it had agreed to buy Tellme Networks to add voice-recognition software that lets users obtain a phone listing, order a pizza and search the Internet.
Financial terms were not disclosed, but the deal was said to be worth more than $800 million, making it Microsoft’s biggest acquisition since 2002.
The purchase gives Microsoft voice-recognition programs it can combine with mobile phone applications, as well as Office word processing and e-mail software. Steven A. Ballmer, the Microsoft chief executive, said that search on cellphones would be one of the next battlegrounds between Microsoft and the Internet search leader, Google.
According to Reuters
``Mobile search is going to be a huge market,'' said Morningstar analyst Toan Tran. ``Search on mobile phones is still up for grabs and Microsoft is a big believer in voice being an interface for mobile phones.'' ...
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in his 1995 book ``The Road Ahead'' predicted that humans would one day talk to their computers rather than have to type and Tellme fits with his vision of expanding input to more natural ways than typing.
Reporting this story today on BBC from London, one of their news readers pointed out that she had tried Tellme's service while in the United states and "had to put on an American accent" to get it to work properly. Could the spread of voice-recognition software like this ultimately force the world's non-American English speakers to modify their accents just to find out what time a movie's playing?
Microsoft Agrees to Buy Maker of Voice-Recognition Software - New York Times
Microsoft said yesterday that it had agreed to buy Tellme Networks to add voice-recognition software that lets users obtain a phone listing, order a pizza and search the Internet.
Financial terms were not disclosed, but the deal was said to be worth more than $800 million, making it Microsoft’s biggest acquisition since 2002.
The purchase gives Microsoft voice-recognition programs it can combine with mobile phone applications, as well as Office word processing and e-mail software. Steven A. Ballmer, the Microsoft chief executive, said that search on cellphones would be one of the next battlegrounds between Microsoft and the Internet search leader, Google.
According to Reuters
``Mobile search is going to be a huge market,'' said Morningstar analyst Toan Tran. ``Search on mobile phones is still up for grabs and Microsoft is a big believer in voice being an interface for mobile phones.'' ...
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in his 1995 book ``The Road Ahead'' predicted that humans would one day talk to their computers rather than have to type and Tellme fits with his vision of expanding input to more natural ways than typing.
Reporting this story today on BBC from London, one of their news readers pointed out that she had tried Tellme's service while in the United states and "had to put on an American accent" to get it to work properly. Could the spread of voice-recognition software like this ultimately force the world's non-American English speakers to modify their accents just to find out what time a movie's playing?
posted 3/15/2007
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