New mobile voice services on their way

Tellme (www.tellme.com) founder Mike McCue is leaving Tellme, which he founded in 1999. Tellme was acquired by Microsoft in 2007 and is becoming increasingly integrated into Microsoft. Tellme recently announced that it will offer the first mobile voice service to combine content and communications, simplifying how people interact with their phones every day. Tellme says it is the first to allow people to press one button, say what they want and get it, whether that is to send a text, make a call or search for information. Tellme has designed a unique version of this experience specifically for Windows phones due out this fall.

Tellme says that the new service puts many of the most popular phone functions behind a single button. Windows phone users just press the side button of their phone to:

* Send a text by saying "text" to open a text box, then speak the text message and say "send" to send it to anyone in their contact list;
* Initiate a call simply by saying "call" and then the name of anyone in their contact list;
* Search the Web with Microsoft Live Search by speaking your request, such as "weather in San Francisco, California", "Pizza in Kansas City" or "Mother's Day gift ideas."

Datamonitor (www.datamonitor.com) predicts, separately, that the global market for advanced speech recognition (ASR) in mobile handsets will increase from $32.7 million in 2009 to $99.6 million in 2014. Datamonitor predicts ASR in-vehicle telematics will grow at a similar rate, from $64.3 million in 2009 to 208.2 million by 2014.
-Stuart Whitaker