【2013 Archives】

Microsoft will soon bring its digital assistant to a lot more places.

013 Archivescompany is opening up Cortana to third-party hardware companies so they can integrate it into hardware devices like speakers, cars and home appliances. The first of these will be a Cortana-enabled speaker made by Harman Kardon with a planned launch in 2017, the tech giant announced at an event in San Francisco on Tuesday.

Microsoft revealed few details about the upcoming speaker, but the Amazon Echo-like device is voice activated and will work with third-party services, Microsoft says. The company didn't reveal a specific date of when it would launch, just that's it's coming sometime in 2017.

The Cortana integration is possible thanks to Microsoft's new Cortana Devices Software Development Kit (SDK), which will allow hardware companies to embed Cortana into everything from cars to home appliances.

"We really want to open up Cortana to all types of devices," Marcus Ash, Microsoft's Group Program Manager for Cortana, said during a press event in San Francisco Tuesday.

Like Amazon's Echo, developers will also be able to create "skills" so Cortana can control various devices and services -- like, say, Spotify or Philips Hue lights -- via a Cortana Skills Kit.

The Skills Kit also allows developers to port skills they've already created for Alexa, or bots they've built for Cortana using Microsoft's Bot Framework. Microsoft plans to open Skills Kit to developers beginning in February 2017.

Updated to clarify Microsoft's Skills Kit is launching in February 2017 and Harman Kardon's speaker will launch at a later date.