Cortana was named after a character from the video game Halo. Halo Microsoft's digital assistant Cortana probably won't be exclusive to Windows Phones much longer.

During a meeting with a small group of journalists and analysts last week, Microsoft's chief experience officer Julie Larson-Green showed that Cortana could be used for a variety of tasks, not just looking up information like the weather or sports scores.

When asked if that meant Cortana would eventually come to other operating systems, Larson-Green said, "The short answer is, yeah."

Larson-Green wouldn't go into more detail than that, but if you look at Microsoft's recent products like Office for iPhone, iPad, and Android, it's clear the company is much more open to bringing its apps and services to rival hardware.

Cortana's role is already being expanded within Microsoft's world. Microsoft is working on ways to help you use it to naturally search for items within Office 365 and other products. Imagine asking your computer to "show me all emails from Joe Sixpack," for example.

Cortana is widely regarded as a better product than Siri for iPhone and iPad. And it wouldn't be the first alternative digital assistant on a platform like iPhone. Google Now, the virtual assistant for Android, has been on iPhone for a few months.