Voice Cliques

The big news from this last week in the Internet of Things is that Amazon and Microsoft are talking to each other.  At least, they are through their digital assistants.  You can now 'summon' Cortana through Alexa and vice-versa.

The big idea that helped these two Seattle area volcanoes of tech to work together is that their two assistants are good at different things.  Cortana integrates well with Microsoft Office and the Bing search engine.  Alexa is good at almost everything else.  This means that you will soon be able to say natural sounding phrases like, "Alexa, open Cortana. [pause] Hey Cortana, what's on my Outlook calendar for today?"  All from the same speaker thingy sitting on some shelf in whatever room you are in.

Not clunky at all.

The It Girl

This sets aside the fact that, with a little bit of work, you can already link many MS Office functions with Alexa.  The calendar example above is relate-able, but not something that the tech savvy might actually do.

More to the point, you will be able to summon Alexa through Cortana.  Now, sitting at your desk at work where you don't have an Echo device, you will be able to play your Prime Music (through headphones, of course.  Don't forget cubicle etiquette).  Or add things to your shopping list.  Or order pizza for your team.  Or get an Uber.  Or... the thousands of things that Alexa does that Cortana does not.

On the surface, then, it seems that this is more of a win for Amazon.  They get an immediate increase in their install base that can use the Alexa app.  It is possible that those of us with Windows 10 will be able to summon Alexa through Cortana even if we have not previously purchased an Echo device.  The official functionality of this pairing has not been fully fleshed out, but Amazon would be idiotic not to open this up so people can buy more things from them.

Make The Wallflower Popular

But what about Microsoft?  What do they get out of it?  With the existing Alexa skills, there are few real use cases for summoning Cortana through Alexa.  In fact, the only one that really sits with me are porn searches through Bing.  If, you know, that's your thing.

All of that aside, Microsoft gets something maybe more valuable than an install base.  After all, they already have that through all of those Win 10 installations.  All of which make turning Cortana off less than easy.  An install base is not their problem.  Getting people to actually use it is their problem.  By partnering with Amazon, Microsoft is hoping that people will actually use Cortana instead of ignore it.

Because then Microsoft gets all of those juicy analytics that they crave.  And with analytics comes advertising revenue.  After all, you did not think that the free Windows 10 upgrade last year was really 'free', did you?

Go ahead on link these two.  Summon Alexa through Cortana like some magic genie possessing another not-so magic genie.  But be aware that you are now sharing your preferences and tastes with two huge companies instead of just one.