Kara Swisher reported earlier today that Tellme founder Mike McCue is leaving Microsoft (s MSFT) at the end of June 2009. His Tellme co-founder, Angus Davis, is leaving the company as well. He sent out an email to his friends and family, shortly after announcing the news to the Tellme team. I’ve covered the speech-recognition company from when it was started to the day it became part of Microsoft after the software giant bought it for a rumored $800 million. Microsoft has plans to use voice as a mobile phone interface. Mike and Angus went through some serious ups and downs with Tellme. It was a deal with AT&T that helped Tellme get its mojo. I don’t think their exit disrupts Tellme’s operations. My question is, what do they do next?
that’s what MS is good at, buy a company, piss the employees off and kill the product gradually… that’s what they are doing to Danger too… they just fired bunch of people there…
Oh wow… that is news. I wonder why they did that? Any details you can share with me.
read all about it here: http://www.hiptop3.com/archives/microsoft-lays-off-danger-employees/
Who cares, Om? They are spin doctors not technologists … expect them to create hype around another empty promise, take investor dollars and live the lives of Valley celebs.
I cannot say that I am a fan of Microsoft, but I suppose they are smart enough to squeeze these guys out before they sucked any more money from the Redmond giant.
p.s. @Lance, Danger guys being laid off is disappointing, indeed; however, I wouldn’t even compare the talent at Danger with the frothy Tellme guys.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This is the best M&A MSFT has done in the past several years. I just don’t think MSFT has done a good job of leveraging TellMe into other products lines (i.e hosted CRM).
If you look at the success that Saleforce has had the one killer app they have missed the boat on was/is hosted IVR.
This was the opportunity for MSFT to jump into the space and really take some huge strides.
I don’t know the founders of TellMe, but, I know the story well. These guys *almost* went out of biz and came back stronger than ever- hence, the $800M acquisition.
Geez Peter, a bit disgruntled, aren’t we? Don’t hate on people just because they’re more successful than you.
It’s interesting that the big boys (MS with Tellme and Google with Ev Williams of Blogger and now Twitter) are unable to hold on to the founders of some of their key acquisitions. Is it because the bureaucracy of big companies drives away the genuine entrepreneurs ?
Mirosoft figured out it wasn’t a viable business, so they are keeping the technology and engineers. Expect more execs to leave.