Microsoft acquires messaging start-up founded by Indian

New York, June 17: Technology giant Microsoft has acquiredamessaging-appdeveloper founded by an Indian as the US-based software firm aimstostrengthenitsposition in the emerging era of combining the power of human language with advanced machine intelligence.

Microsoft acquired California-based Wand Labs, a start-upwhichbuildsmessaging technology for apps, founded in 2013 by IIT-Delhi alumnus Vishal Sharma who was previously the vice president, products at Google.

The terms of the acquisition were not made public.

“This acquisition accelerates our vision and strategy for 'Conversation as a Platform' which (India-born CEO of Microsoft) Satya Nadella introduced at our Build 2016 conference,” corporate vice president, information platform group at Microsoft David Ku said in a statement.

During the Build conference in March, Nadella told thousands of developers that he envisages a technological future where computer softwarecanlearnthehumanlanguage and have natural conversations with people. Nadella had said that Microsoft wants to take the power of human language and applyitmorepervasivelytoallof the computing interface and interactions.

Ku said Wand Labs' technology and talent would strengthen Microsoft's position in the “emerging era of conversational intelligence where we bring together the power of human language with advanced machine intelligence, connecting people to knowledge, information, servicesandotherpeopleinmore relevant and natural ways”.

The acquisition builds on and extends the power of the Microsoft's search engine Bing, its cloud computing platform Azure, Office 365 andWindowsplatformstoempower developers everywhere. PTI