Microsoft is seeing high demand for the personal assistant outside the US

Jun 16, 2014 14:56 GMT  ·  By

Back in April, Microsoft made official a new version of its mobile operating system, namely Windows Phone 8.1, which will arrive on existing WP8 devices soon with a nice range of enhancements, including a digital personal assistant called Cortana.

Also in April, Microsoft released the new platform as a Developer Preview, thus allowing users out there to enjoy the capabilities of Cortana, though it restricted the availability of the personal assistant to the US alone.

Changing the phone’s location and language settings to US allows users to get Cortana on their smartphones, and it appears that this is exactly what a large number of people out there did.

According to Microsoft, half of those who enjoy the capabilities of Cortana today live outside the US, which shows that there is great demand for the feature.

Due to that, the company has decided to speed up the rollout of the personal assistant to more markets out there, Marcus Ash, group program manager for Cortana on Windows Phone, has unveiled.

As WPCentral notes, he has said in a recently published video that a lot of users out there are already asking on Twitter when Cortana will be available for them in countries such as Spain, Italy, the UK, Canada, Australia, and others.

Microsoft already said that it was planning the release of Cortana on more markets but also unveiled that it was focused on ensuring a great localized experience with it, this being the main reason for which the feature is available only for the US as of now.

Before the end of this month, the feature is expected to go official in China and the UK. However, it appears that a wider rollout might start soon after, at least this is what Marcus Ash says.

"So we get a lot of feedback on that and I think the early reception and just this kind of groundswell of, I want to use it even though it's not my native language, actually caught us by surprise and is exciting and has really pushed us to think about how quickly we should be releasing these markets," he says.

"So I think you'll see a lot of movement on that front in the next six months. I think this – the number one priority for the team is get this in the hands of as many customers as possible."

Additionally, Microsoft is also interested in expanding the features available in Cortana, though it appears that it might focus first on expanding its availability, and then on adding new functionality to it.

Hopefully, the company will provide some more details on this in the not-too-distant future, especially since there are so many users around the world waiting for Cortana to land in their hands. Stay tuned for more on the matter.