As we predicted yesterday, Microsoft announced this morning that it will be acquiring voice applications provider Tellme, for an undisclosed sum that some insiders had pegged at around $800 million. The deal, which got cooked up over Super Bowl weekend, was only signed last Monday night.
The press release names a few areas for potential development within the new Tellme division of Microsoft, including new voice user interfaces for Microsoft products, voice-based customer service applications, and search services for mobile devices. Considering that Microsoft has sunk billions on speech recognition research over the years, and its voice command demos remain embarrassingly inaccurate, the acquisition may be an acknowledgement that's Microsoft's R&D department just hasn't been able to crack this nut.
Tellme's 320 employees will remain at their current headquarters in Mountain View, California, and will "do well" in the deal, our sources say. Microsoft says it plans to retain the current executive team, led by co-founder and CEO Mike McCue.
