Microsoft said on Thursday it has closed its deal to buy voice recognition specialist Tellme Networks.

Tellme CEO Mike McCue remains at Microsoft as head of that unit, working with Zig Serafin, who is the general manager of Microsoft's Unified Communications Group. The company, which reports into Jeff Raikes' business software unit, is remaining in its Mountain View, headquarters, which is is also home to Microsoft's existing Silicon Valley offices.

Microsoft announced its plans to buy Tellme back in March, following months of negotiations and rumours and reports that a deal was near.

The deal could help Microsoft in a variety of areas, including mobile search, telephony and call centre software. The fact that Tellme sells itself as a service, getting paid for each call its servers handle, as opposed to just selling software also may aid Microsoft in its efforts to expand into new business models.