Viacom sues Google for a billion and change.

Microsoft close to acquiring Tellme for close to billion dollars. it is an acknowledgement that MS’s voice strategy hasn’t worked inspite of BillG’s push for the last 10 years. Industry veterans would note that MS hated VoiceXML and pushed its on SALT initiative which didn’t make much progress. Tellme is 100% VoiceXML (Jeff and I wrote the first book on VoiceXML 2.0 back in the days) and standards-based operation. The acquisition is both driven by its lack of progress as well as fear of Google acquiring Tellme to get a leg up in voice/mobile search.