Amazon exec: Alexa and Siri should be able to chat
Alexa and Siri, rival voice assistants on Amazon’s Echo and Apple’s iPhone, don’t directly communicate with one another. But the Amazon executive in charge of Alexa and the Amazon Echo said he’d welcome the idea.
“You should be able to tell ‘Alexa, ask Siri X,’ ” said David Limp, senior vice president of de- vices at Amazon.
“If Apple or Google want to come calling, my phone number is out there, they can call. ... I don’t know if I can envision it but I hope that will happen on behalf of customers,” Limp told a group of journalists at the Wired Business Conference on Wednesday in New York.
Limp has a strong interest in Apple’s entry into the voice-activated, artificially-intelligent infused speaker space, which also includes Google Home and Microsoft’s Cortana on the Harmon Kardon Invoke speaker. Apple’s HomePod speaker announced Monday it is in direct competition with Amazon’s best-selling Echo and related products, such as the smaller and cheaper Dot and the upcoming video-enabled Amazon Echo Show.
Does Limp think HomePod poses a competitive challenge to Amazon? “From our standpoint, it’s a little different philosophically,” Limp says.
Noting HomePod’s “premium” price, Limp points out that you can place eight of the company’s best-selling Echo Dots in a home for the same price as one new Apple speaker, at least when purchasing the Dots in a three-pack.
“When people are starting to spend … hundreds of dollar per speaker, I think generally they’re going to want choice,” Limp says. He points out that through Bluetooth or a “line out” connection, you can connect a Dot to any compatible speaker of your choice. “People’s tastes in speakers are unbelievably personal,” he says. Limp said the recent Saturday
Night Live parody commercial on an Echo for Seniors was “the greatest thing you’ve ever seen.”
Limp even said there’s some good product ideas in the SNL sketch.