So no Cortana for Canada. Microsoft, what were you thinking?

Canadian Windows 10 users do not have access to Cortana, the "clever new personal assistant" for MS Windows 10.




China was given it. Also UK users enjoy it, as does France, Italy, Germany, hell even Spain has it.

...but not Canada.

And the complaints from Canadians are piling up on the MS Help site

I particularly love what one irate guy wrote there:

Same old runaround, a question is asked and Microsoft gives an unrelated answer! You weren't asked about a phone...why is Cortana not available in Canada? Simple question that a company with all your resources should be able to answer!
Let's set the record straight,

USA and Canada
- our governments get along rather well
- we share intelligence at the highest levels
- NSA and CSEC work hand in hand
- Canada does not Cyber attack the USA
- we are each others biggest trading partner
- we share the longest open border in the world
- we are signatories of NAFTA

USA and China
- China's military is constantly probing US networks for vulnerablities
- China has stolen highly classified material from Sandia, Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos
- China often vetos votes supported by the US in the United Nations, minimizing and negating US support to issues, countries.

So in short I call BullS#$t. US owes China a Trillion plus dollars, thus a communist country completely opposed to US beliefs and standards gets Cortana. Canada, always arm-in-arm with the US, not a chance.

But phear not my phellow CanYuckistanians. At least those of you that already have or plan to upgrade to Win 10. If you're sitting there scratching your noggin as to why no Cortana, according to this windowscentral page Cortana will become available to Canada (English) "soon". I take that to mean in the coming few months, because it also goes on to say that "later this year it will also become available to Canada (French)". There are only a few months of "this year" left.

Also included in that "coming soon" promise are Australia, Japan, India, Brazil, and Mexico.

So, why wasn't Cortana simply released worldwide in one shot?

The simple answer is that Cortana is not just Bing search with voice bootstrapped onto it. If that were the case, then Microsoft would've and should've released it globally on Day 1 for Windows 10. Instead, Cortana ties deeply into a country's culture and local networks for information. This culture and language stuff is the complicated part. To read more see "Making Cortana" at this page.


Aside from all of that MS doesn't appear to be very forthcoming about why they included China and not Canada. Perhaps they're just assholes. Or maybe it's a perceived dialect thing. (Americans and Canadians, apart from the obvious accent differences, speak basically the same lingo)

I guess I can look forward to MY Cortana saying "eh?" and "oot an' aboot" when it finally does get here. :D