Microsoft and Amazon came together for voice Assistants

Microsoft and Amazon

There are number of good things available in every voice assistant — Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant, Amazon’s Alexa and Microsoft’s Cortana. Now assume, two assistant becomes friend and speaking to each other or sharing their tools and services.

Isn’t it great?

Yes, this would be great and this is possible. Microsoft and Amazon announced that their cortana and Alexa will be able to talk to each other. You can ask Amazon’s echo device — “Alexa, Open Cortana” or you can turn to Windows 10 Cortana and say — “Cortana, Open Alexa” and you are able to access their unique features.

In windows 10, microsoft has integrated cortana with it’s Microsoft office products and now Alexa will be able to use them. Also, user will be able to use more cortana skills like booking meetings, accessing calendars and emails. Microsoft is adding more skills to cortana.

Similarly, Cortana customers will be able to use smart home solutions, shop on Amazon.com, interact with many of the more than 20,000 skills built by third-party developers, and much more.

“Ensuring Cortana is available for our customers everywhere and across any device is a key priority for us,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “Bringing Cortana’s knowledge, Office 365 integration, commitments, and reminders to Alexa is a great step toward that goal.”

“The world is big and so multifaceted. There are going to be multiple successful intelligent agents, each with access to different sets of data and with different specialized skill areas. Together, their strengths will complement each other and provide customers with a richer and even more helpful experience,” said Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO, Amazon. “It’s great for Echo owners to get easy access to Cortana.”

Both will start talking to each other later this year. Microsoft is also building Cortana for Android and iOS. Accessing Alexa via Cortana will be possible through all the devices.

About Amazon

Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon.

About Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology company with headquarters in Redmond, Washington. It develops, manufactures, licenses, supports and sells computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and services. Its best known software products are the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, the Microsoft Office suite, and the Internet Explorer and Edge web browsers. Its flagship hardware products are the Xbox video game consoles and the Microsoft Surface tablet lineup. As of 2016, it is the world’s largest software maker by revenue, and one of the world’s most valuable companies. The word “Microsoft” is a portmanteau of “microcomputer” and “software”.

 

Also read the story about partnership between Apple and Accenture.