Microsoft: No personal assistant for Windows Phone until it is revolutionary

If Windows Phone 8 is going to continue to make a move and compete with iOS and Android, there are many out there who believe that the platform will have to include a voice activated personal assistant like Siri or Google Now. Stefan Weitz, senior director for Bing, apparently feels that a Windows Phone version of the pair will have to have more capabilities than either personal assistant. "Siri and Google Now have a fairly shallow understanding of the world," says the executive.

According to Weitz, Siri or Google Now are great if you need to find the starting time of a movie or the directions to an eatery, but fail when it comes to purchasing a new hard drive or finding out the circumference of Lake Erie. While Siri and Google Now both get their information from many sources, Google Now also can look into your calendar and email (with your permission, of course) to send you timely information such as traffic for the commute home, or information about a topic you recently showed interest in finding out about online. Google Now will also keep you up to date on flight departures and arrivals.

Weitz states that Microsoft has had internal discussions about offering a similar feature for Windows Phone 8, but the overall feeling was that any such feature for Windows Phone that was offered now would not be state-of-the-art. Weitz summed up the feelings inside Redmond about a Siri/Google Now function for Windows Phone when he said, "We are not shipping until we have something more revolutionary than evolutionary."

source: CNET