Microsoft has been pushing Cortana as an extension for Office 365 for the last year. The concept is simple: Cortana has access to Outlook, Word, LinkedIn, Microsoft Edge, To Do, OneNote, and other productivity-focused skills that only Microsoft can deliver. What Microsoft is not good at is all the smart home stuff that Google and Amazon are now dominating. The same problem exists for Google and Amazon, but in reverse. Those companies (primarily Amazon) have no access to the business world or even what's on your PC. They can't help with emails, Exchange, LinkedIn, or anything that is done on Windows 10. Those voice assistants exist mostly in a consumer-siloed space either on your smartphone (Google) or your kitchen (Amazon). The world that Microsoft sees (and wants) is not one where a single voice-assistant does everything, everywhere. Google may want that, but it means that consumers and businesses would have to surrender a ton of data to one company. There's also no clear path for Google to extend its reach into enterprise as it has almost no serious reach in the business world. The same goes for Apple, Amazon, and Samsung. For Microsoft, the ideal smart AI world is one where "agents" from various companies talk to each other. That's the idea behind the Voice Interoperability Initiative. In the press release about the project, Amazon spelled out the goals: Developing voice services that can work seamlessly with others while protecting the privacy and security of customers

Building voice-enabled devices that promote choice and flexibility through multiple, simultaneous wake words

Releasing technologies and solutions that make it easier to integrate multiple voice services on a single product

Accelerating machine learning and conversational AI research to improve the breadth, quality, and interoperability of voice services The grand idea is for these systems to have simultaneous wake words. As the press release notes: The initiative is built around a shared belief that voice services should work seamlessly alongside one another on a single device and that voice-enabled products should be designed to support multiple simultaneous wake words. If such a project works it means Cortana on Windows 10 can not only call up Alexa but any other digital assistants that are participating. Moreover, it removes the current cumbersome tasks of first waking the primary assistant to ask for the secondary one. This approach would have a neutralizing effect on the hardware as the speakers around us all effectively become voice vessels for the world. Smart speakers just become hardware

For Microsoft, the beauty here should be apparent: The Invoke speaker and GLAS thermostat were market failures. With this initiative, Microsoft no longer needs to take risks in either building hardware or partnering with others only to fail. This strategy should sound familiar. It's the one behind Windows PCs, where Microsoft lets its OEM partners take 98 percent of the market. Microsoft can then focus on what it does best: software and services. Surface still exists to "set the bar" and push the industry in specific directions – and with that approach, we may see more Cortana-hardware in the future. But no longer does Microsoft need to worry as much. After all, Microsoft is not a hardware company in the traditional sense. The new Fitbit Versa 2 features Alexa. Now imagine if Alexa can open Cortana directly on the Versa 2. That's something that could happen. And for Microsoft, it solves a big problem: consumer reach. Should Microsoft create a wearable just for Cortana, or would it be easier to ride on the coattails of Fitbit and Amazon? The answer is obvious.