Microsoft Tellme is NOT the same as Siri [video]
Over the past 24hours there have been a lot of posts about Microsoft's Chief Research and Strategy Officer, Craig Mundie, claiming that “Microsoft has had a similar capability in Windows Phone for more than a year... All that is already there, fully functionality for years.”
Context & Ripple Effects
Craig Mundie's argument that Windows Phone has offered 'fully functional' Siri-equivalent voice features for over a year via Tellme lands three weeks after Apple turned Siri into the iPhone 4S's headline feature, and it reads as an incumbent reframing legacy assets against a rival's new category. The history cuts both ways: Microsoft's Tellme voice platform is genuinely old — CNET reported a Tellme app planned for the iPhone as far back as September 2008 — but age is not equivalence, which is exactly the point techAU's video rebuttal presses.
First-order effects
- Mundie's claim puts Microsoft in a defensive posture at the worst moment: every demo comparing Tellme's command-and-control voice functions against Siri's conversational assistant now doubles as a public test of his 'already there for years' framing.
- techAU's side-by-side video shifts the burden of proof onto Microsoft — the debate is no longer whether Tellme exists, but whether its capabilities match what Siri actually does.
Second-order effects
- The comparison pressures Microsoft to accelerate a genuine conversational assistant for Windows Phone rather than defend Tellme as-is, likely pulling Bing and Tellme into a tighter, Siri-shaped product effort.
- Windows Phone already plays feature catch-up on Apple — Neowin reported in January 2011 that Microsoft was building a FaceTime competitor for Windows Phone — and voice becomes one more front where carrier and buyer expectations are set by Cupertino's roadmap.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, voice stops being a checkbox utility and becomes a defining smartphone differentiator, forcing every platform holder to either field a real assistant or cede the narrative — and incumbents' habit of relabeling old technology as equivalent will keep drawing the same public rebuttals techAU just delivered.
The trend: Smartphone voice interfaces are shifting from dictation-and-command utilities toward conversational assistants, with Apple's Siri setting the benchmark that rivals' legacy voice platforms are suddenly measured against.