TellMe joins the chorus of Microsoft voices

JD Lewin — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 00:24:00 GMT

TellMe became a part of the Microsoft fold this morning for the sum of $800m (and change). The acquisition is designed to grow voice technology in areas of unified communications, mobile services, as well as the overall Speech platform.

Om Malik has the relevant details for those who are interested in the plumbing of the deal. According to him, Mr. Ballmer was personally driving the deal and TellMe will continue as an independent subsidiary of Microsoft.

Perception of the purchase is that TellMe’s technology will help differentiate Microsoft in the search business, particularly mobile search (actually speaking to your mobile phone—surely you’re joking). Don Dodge points out in his post about the deal that both mobile and local search are very valuable (and relatively open) markets.

While the public perception seems to revolve around Microsoft’s attempts to become more relevant in the search market, Richard Sprague believes the deal is about acquiring TellMe’s data: “It's extremely important in speech to get actual users using your system, because every call and every interaction is new data that will improve quality and accuracy. A significant fraction of the U.S. population has called TellMe, which is an asset that will mean huge improvements to all of our systems.”

National e-Prescribing Patient Safety Initiative, HIMSS, and more

Bill Crounse, MD — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 21:37:00 GMT

Last week while visiting New York City, I sat down for an interview with Peter Cervieri at ScribeMedia. Peter and I first met last December at the Consumer Health World conference in Washington, D.C. Peter had invited me to visit him at ScribeMedia's Manhattan headquarters the next time I was in the city, and so I did. I toured ScribeStudios and then Peter and I chatted for 30 minutes or so about some of our initiatives at Microsoft. We also videotaped the interview so Peter could share it with his "viewers". We talked about the National e-Prescribing Patient Safety Initiatiive (NEPSI) sponsored by a consortium of leading technology companies including Microsoft, payor organizations and academic medical centers across the nation. NEPSI makes an easy-to-use and secure web services e-prescribing solution from Microsoft partner Allscripts available free of charge to every physician in America. Adoption of e-prescribing by all physicians is essential to help reduce medication errors that according to a report from the Institute of Medicine injure more than 700,000 Americans each year.

We also talked about a range of other topics related to healthcare IT and Microsoft's role in the industry. I hope you enjoy the show.

Next Saturday, I'm off to HIMSS in New Orleans where I hope to see a lot of you. If you are in the neighborhood of the Microsoft booth on Monday or Tuesday, I hope you'll drop by and say hello. I hope you'll also be around for Steve Ballmer's keynote on Monday morning. I think you'll be inspired by his message and our vision for higher quality, safer, more effective and satisfying health and healthcare made possible by technology.

Bill Crounse, MD Worldwide Health Director Microsoft

Entries tagged with steve ballmer - Channel 10

TellMe joins the chorus of Microsoft voices

National e-Prescribing Patient Safety Initiative, HIMSS, and more