Microsoft’s Cortana digital assistant has been around for much longer than Amazon’s Alexa has, but yet Alexa has quickly dominated the scene, so much so that it seems that Microsoft has decided that if they can’t beat them, maybe they should join them. This is what Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella had hinted at in a report from Business Insider.According to Nadella, “Would it be better off, for example, to make Cortana a valuable skill that someone who is using Alexa can call? Or should we try to compete with Alexa? We, quite frankly, decided that we would do the former. Because Cortana needs to be that skill for anyone who is a Microsoft Office 365 subscriber.”
He adds, “And you should also be able to use [Cortana] on Google Assistant. You should be able to use it on Alexa, just like you use our apps on Android or iOS. So that’s at least how we want to go.” Nadella’s approach seems to be how Microsoft is approaching its competition these days.
Previously the company had tried to compete with iOS and Android with Windows Phone, and while the platform certainly had its own merits, it just could not catch on in any meaningful way. These days Microsoft has turned to creating apps for both iOS and Android, integrating their own software and services into these platforms instead.