The TechAU blog is 100% correct. Mundie said they had similar capabilities to Siri over 1 year ago. No, they had a pretty good voice command system and dictation 1 year ago. They had nothing similar to Siri 1 year ago. In fact, the third concept video is very close to where Siri is today and not someplace in the distant MS future. For example: I can ask Siri "What is the terminal velocity of an unladen swallow" and it will give me an answer. Not a search but an answer.
I am betting Mundie actually takes the concept video at face value and sees (either through mis-information or delusion) TellMe like the concept video. As for the WinRumors demo, what is interesting is that Siri can use all of those commands (with the exception of opening apps) using the same grammer as TellMe. TellMe, cannot come close to using hte same grammer and context as Siri.
While everyone seems to be talking about Apple’s Siri voice control technology, Microsoft is keen to let us all know that it has had a similar feature baked into Windows Phone for more than a year.
Here’s a Forbes magazine interview with Microsoft’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie where he reminds us not to be fooled by Apple’s marketing:
People are infatuated with Apple announcing it. It’s good marketing, but at least as the technological capability you could argue that Microsoft has had a similar capability in Windows Phones for more than a year, since Windows Phone 7 was introduced.
Here’s the video:
But is it as good as Apple’s Siri?
Well, the folks over at Australian tech blog TechAu aren’t that impressed with Microsoft’s ‘Tellme’ technology:
I don’t know about you, but that comparison seems overly biased to me. A better video demonstrating the voice capabilities of Windows Phone was put together by Tom Warren of Winrumors:
Where does Microsoft thing that ‘Tellme’ technology is going? Here’s what the Redmond giant think you’ll be able to do with voice control in the future:
Pretty cool, eh? Whether any of this will ever see light of day, who knows.
Microsoft has a problem when it comes to marketing. Apple introduced Siri to the world less than two weeks before the handset went on sale, and hordes of potential buyers knew about the technology (according to a few polls, it was the technology that sold the 4S to people). Microsoft on the other hand has to remind people that they’ve had something similar (although not as impressive) on its handsets for more than a year.
Once again, it shows the importance of marketing.
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