Apple acquires Siri personal assistant
Continuing with its recent acquisitions spree, Apple has purchased software company Siri, which has been offering a Web-based, voice-usable personal assistant service, giving Apple more punch for mobile search.
This space yesterday featured the Apple purchase of Intrinsity, a designer of chips and a company that was helpful in designing the CPU for the iPad. That article also mentioned a number of other recent acquisitions made by Apple in the recent past. Now they have done it again, buying San Jose based Siri, a company that has developed mobile personal assistant software mainly used on smartphones and via speech-to-text capabilities, according to Geek.com. That makes it a great fit with other voice-based mobile software, such as voice-based search, which Apple will need if they are to replace Google on their mobile platforms with their own Apple-centric search engine.
This is truly interesting software, which claims to be able to do many of the things that a personal assistant could do for you. This includes things like (according to the Siri home page) getting you a reservation at a restaurant, ordering up a taxi, finding a theater for that movie you’ve been wanting to see, and so on. It even claims to be able to learn, like a real personal assistant, what your preferences are when used over time. The software admits to being young and imperfect, but getting better over time. All in all, it would appear to be an very cool concept, and very much within the Apple frame of reference.
There was no word from Apple about the purchase, though apparently the deal was verified via a listing on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Web site, where the acquisition is listed as a deal that has been granted early termination under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. There was speculation that Apple may have paid as much as $200 million for the company, an indication that the acquisition will prove very useful to the Apple, and perhaps quickly. This integration should be fun to watch.
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