Microsoft announced plans to acquire Tellme in early March for an undisclosed amount (said to be between $800M-$1B) and in doing so also made known their vested interest in having a larger stake in the “voice-enabled information access” arena.
A provider of voice-enabled services such as nationwide directory assistance, enterprise customer service and voice-enabled mobile search, Tellme is a large player in the emerging mobile search industry. With over 40 million users a month, Tellme is geared to grow even more with their mobile-to-internet search capabilities. As reported in Microsoft’s press release--
“We’ve made great strides in speech technologies, but have only scratched the surface of what is possible,” said Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division. “The acquisition of Tellme will bolster Microsoft’s existing speech capabilities, bringing both immediate and longer-term value to our customers and partners.”
“Tellme was founded with the idea that anyone should be able to simply say what they want and get it from any device, starting with the phone,” said Mike McCue, co-founder and CEO of Tellme. “Now, with Microsoft, we’ll be able to extend that vision to millions of businesses and consumers around the world.”
According to Don Dodge from Microsoft’s emerging business team, the next big thing in search could very well be mobile search, a largely untapped area, with hundred millions more mobile phones than there are PCs. He predicts that mobile phones will be the main form for communication and computing within the next 5 years.
For a glimpse of the future, take a look at the Tellme Web site.
