Why are Dev’s and brands running after Echo skills while Cortana still only has useful integration by MS itself? How hard can it be for MS to open up Cortana for cloud based 3rd party integration? Or is that what the Bot platform is all about?
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23 November, 2016 - 5:03 am
<p>"Why is Echo running laps around Cortana?"</p>
<p>Aren’t Echo and Cortana two different things? Cortana is an "AI" and the Echo is a device (with it’s own AI, Alexa). So it might be more appropriate to compare Cortana to Alexa and the Echo to Microsoft’s equivalent device.</p>
<p>And that might begin to answer the question. Microsoft does not have an equivalent device, whereas the Echo has been around for two years and has even spawned other devices: The Amazon Tap, which is battery-powered, and the Echo Dot, which is already on version 2.</p>
<blockquote><em><a href="#26945">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/offTheRecord">offTheRecord</a><a href="#26945">:</a></em></blockquote>
<p>You are right I set Echo equal to Alexa, while I meant Alexa. But still Cortana is in many living rooms with the Xbox One and many more houses through W10. A Echo like device would not make sense for Cortana right now since it would need a interface to install Apps to enhance Cortana with 3rd Party support. What I am really wanting to know is why MS has not brought out a feature equivalent to Alexa Skills.</p>
<p>Alexa integration is easy – it’s entirely web based and you can knock something up with AWS Lambda and JavaScript in minutes. Cortana enhancement means writing a UWP app which just isn’t as trivial.</p>
<blockquote><em><a href="#27067">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/maethorechannen">maethorechannen</a><a href="#27067">:</a></em></blockquote>
<p>What I wonder is why MS has not added web based Cortana enhancements yet.</p>
<blockquote><em><a href="#27095">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/MerlinE.">MerlinE.</a><a href="#27095">:</a></em></blockquote>
<p>I bet it has something to do with Alexa having all it’s smarts in the cloud while Cortana has the smarts mixed between the device and the cloud (though that doesn’t explain why Cortana can’t use the bot framework stuff, other than I wonder how much of the bot framework stuff is "I see you’re chatting about flying to Canada, do you want me to look up flights?" Clippy-esque crap). </p>
<blockquote><em><a href="#27067">In reply to </a><a href="../../../../users/maethorechannen">maethorechannen</a><a href="#27067">:</a></em></blockquote>
<p>MS better fix this soon because at this rate Amazon is going to have a monopoly on this market to the point that only Apple will be able to come out with a Siri Cube and it will be competitive.</p>
<p>If MS can’t succeed in the consumer mobile market, what chance do they have in consumer AI? Cortana on WM makes some sense, where it competes with Google Now and Siri, but WM is dead. Cortana on the desktop makes little sense, and is actually really annoying and mostly pointless. Google Home and Amazon Echo will clean up the consumer space. Those companies are familiar to consumers, and seem more friendly and approachable than MS, who seem locked into business, don’t listen and are run by ‘suits’ who don’t really have a clue it would seem. Apple I’m sure will enter this market too, but they don’t really have the cloud presence at the back end to make it work, so that will be interesting.</p>
<p>If it is Microsoft it sucks! Get something else and enjoy.</p>
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<p>I am personally tired of reading nothing but MS hate. Well tomorrow is a new day.</p>
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