Acer will be the first to ship Amazon Alexa on Windows 10 PCs, beginning this week

[KRS]

At CES this year, Acer, ASUS, HP, and Lenovo all announced that they would be bringing Amazon's Alexa voice assistant to their Windows 10 PCs. It's now over four months later, and no one has done it yet, despite Microsoft showing off Alexa and Cortana integration at its Build 2018 developer conference.

Acer today became the first to provide details on the rollout, and said that beginning today, Alexa comes pre-loaded on the Spin 3 and Spin 5. If you've already purchased one, you'll receive a software update this week, with the Spin 5 getting it on May 23 and the Spin 3 receiving the update on the 26.

 

"We're delighted to work with Acer to bring Alexa to customers in new ways," said Steve Rabuchin, Vice President, Amazon Alexa. "We believe customers should be able to interact with Alexa wherever they might need her, including from their PCs, in order to take advantage of the simplicity of voice control."

Acer said that this is the first step toward bringing Alexa to all of its PCs.

 

It's undeniable that this is a shot across the bow of Cortana, which is Microsoft's virtual assistant that comes pre-installed on all Windows 10 devices. After all, the addition of Alexa means that there's a need that isn't being met with Cortana, even if Cortana itself has Alexa built into it.

 

The company said that with Alexa, users can "check the weather, make an entry on their calendar, create lists, answer questions, or play their favorite music, podcasts or audiobooks." You can also use it to control your smart home devices.

 

Acer did not provide details for when Alexa will be rolling out to any other devices.

 

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[Ryrynz]

Hilarious.. a book store and also a search engine company beating MS at it's own game. Who would've thought twenty years ago it would come to this.

MS dropped the ball hard.