as Automated Service Agents(tm). Microsoft acquired Colloquis in 2007 and proceeded to de-commission SmarterChild and kill off the Automated Service Agent business as well. In many ways, SmarterChild was a precursor to Apple's Siri and Samsung's S Voice. As Shawn Carolan of Menlo Ventures, a Siri investor, said, "…When I first encountered Siri, SmarterChild already had 10 million users and was getting a billion messages a day… The market was speaking." Robert Hoffer, ActiveBuddy co-founder, licensed the technology from Microsoft after Microsoft abandoned the Colloquis technology. References External links Instant messaging Microsoft acquisitions Chatbots