- When launched, Bing411 was essentially a re-branding of Tellme's 1-800-555-TELL service.
- 1-800-555-TELL has been running since 2000 or something like that. I attended the 10th anniversary party, which I believe was in 2010.
- Microsoft didn't need to launch a Microsoft-branded 411 to collect utterances, for they had acquired Tellme and had many utterances coming in under their umbrella of services
- Tellme's bread and butter was speech recognition on the telephone and they are still in that space today, so Bing411, 1-800-555-TELL are still relevant for them.
I can also say that a lot of the speculation in the article about Microsoft's "reaction" is just wrong. But, I won't go into specifics because they aren't relevant.
I enjoyed the author's original point about making sure you are playing the same game. Unfortunately, the example used is factually inaccurate.