Are you there Eliza? My e-mail is broken.

Got A Question? Microsoft's Newly Acquired Software May Have The Answers

Colloquis' technology lets Web users type free-form questions into a text box, and receive conversational answers via artificial intelligence technology known as natural language processing. The technique parses typed-in sentences to identify their subjects and other parts of speech, then assigns levels of importance to certain words. "The best example I can give is if sometime types in, 'My E-mail sucks', the natural language processing agent is able to understand that," says Clinton Dickey, a group product manager at Microsoft who worked on the deal. "It's about replicating live agents."