Microsoft Acquires Tellme: Strengthens Mobile Search And Voice Services

Microsoft has announced that it is acquiring Tellme Networks, Inc., which is a “leading provider of voice services for everyday life, including nationwide directory assistance, enterprise customer service and voice-enabled mobile search.”

According to Steve Balmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft, “Tellme brings to Microsoft the talent, technology and proven experience in speech that will enable us to deliver a new wave of products and revolutionize human-computer interaction.”

According to the press release by Microsoft,

Tellme is a leader in voice services for the phone, including its popular mobile search services on 1-800-555-TELL. Founded in 1999, the privately held company answers millions of calls every day for information such as finding local businesses, driving directions, sports scores, stock quotes, weather, news, movie show times and more.

Combined with Microsoft’s platform, expertise in digital devices and Tellme’s competence in high volume voice services, the association is sure to bring about new innovations. In fact, areas of collaboration have always been charted out. 

Potential areas of development resulting from the deal will range from hosted voice-enabled customer service solutions that complement Microsoft’s existing unified communications offerings to voice user interfaces in existing Microsoft products to search services on mobile phones that integrate with Live Search for mobile offerings.

But as Greg Sterling says the mobile search market is quite open and the one offering the best user experience will be one to corner a bigger share. 

Click here to subscribe to our RSS feed to get a daily digest of news around search engine industry. PageTraffic SEO Blog is updated four times a day and is ranked as one of the best search engine resources blog by Pandia!