Microsoft buys TellMe

[yesthattom]

I have tons of respect for TellMe. I have friends there. There are many times that I wish I had taken that interview and ended up in California. On the other hand, now that Microsoft has bought them I have to be honest that this was my reaction:

I hate to be cynical but I’m curious if Microsoft:

1. Believes the future of the Internet is in voice-based search, or that it is as important enough to be able to do in “in house”.

or

2. Has identified TellMe as a competitor and is shutting them down.

or

3. Has no idea what to do, is lost their way. However, since inaction is bad, they’re buying a random company to look “mysterious” rather than lost.

I’m guessing “3”.

Comments

[dossy.livejournal.com]

I definitely think Web 3.0 is "the mobile web." Before you know it, there will be more web browsers on the Internet via mobile device than PC. Microsoft would be foolish not to have a solid play in that.

Apparently they realize the importance because in the announcements, they've said that TellMe will run as as an independent subsidiary--not to be swallowed up (and likely, subsequently destroyed) by the MSFT giant.

[mtnvwpilot.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's Microsoft's explicit intent, but I think they're going to wind up killing it, just like they did WebTV.

Everything is roses right now, but soon enough the honeymoon will end, and there will start being subtle and not-so-subtle pressure to switch Tellme's platform from Solaris x86 to Vista, which will send the company into a porting black hole for a year or so. The code itself is probably portable enough; what isn't, though, are the processes and tools for setting up, managing, and monitoring systems, which are totally Solaris-specific (or, at best, UNIX-specific).

Plus they'll have all the inevitable problems retaining their key people (and they run so lean that pretty much everybody in Engineering and Network Operations is "key" for one thing or another), many of whom won't be thrilled about working for Microsoft (especially after the honeymoon is over and reality sets in). The eventual inevitable push to move to a Microsoft platform will probably just accelerate the turnover among the technical staff.

Tellme wasn't really on track to IPO any time soon, though, so this is a welcome surprise for us shareholders (I worked there for a year or so), who otherwise wouldn't have seen any payoff for years to come.

[dannyman.livejournal.com]

I have heard it is not #2.

You work(ed) at Google, right? These big companies like to absorb interesting smaller companies "just in case" . . . it is probably somewhere between 1 and 3.

-danny