Orange Sim Updates?

[Guest Big Ron - No Longer a Mem]

Far from sour grapes. I'd still be an Orange customer if I'd not got a significantly better contract from O2. I'd commend Orange as a carrier to anyone: while a huge amount of whingeing takes place on this forum about how bad O's tech support is, it's still a lot better than most of the others, and it's free. Alas, "better than the others" is "good enough" for Orange - it could be a lot better. The guys and girls who answer the phone on 156 are held back by what they're ALLOWED to do. which in most cases seemed to be less than they'd like to have done.

I've no objection to smartphones - despite accusations to the contrary. My sole worry is that having once got their toe in the door, Microsoft will - following their usual business pattern - attempt to stifle competition, take control of and determine "The Standard" and exploit their ownership of it to kill off any new and innovative ideas that THEY don't own and control. It hasn't happened yet... but it's only a matter of time. If Smartphones were being developed by a Microsoft subsidiary, where policy wasn't dictated from Redmond, I'd be a LOT more enthusiastic. But policy IS dictated from Redmond... and Redmond has a clear track record of trying to "conquer the world" by any means available. The SPV as a phone is great. But it's ALSO a "Reichstag fire" - an event that inevitably led to the unpleasantness we recall as WW2.

[Guest morpheus2702]

Ron, you have outdone yourself this time!

Microsoft to World War II in one paragraph - f***ing GENIUS! :wink:

Seriously Ron I think you ought to get yourself checked out as your paranoid tendencies seem to be escalating.

[Guest Big Ron - No Longer a Mem]

Predictable behaviour has predictable consequences. Maybe you should think a little harder about your "appeasement" policy: Just because Microsoft screwed every rival in every field they've chosen to enter thus far DOESN'T mean they're going to try it again with the mobile phone industry? Paranoia has little to do with it - the worrying people are the apologists - the "anything Microsoft did in the past is IN the past" merchants. The only puzzling aspect of the Microsoft/Sendo row is how Sendo can have been so DUMB as to stick their head in the lion's mouth and not expect to get bitten - it's not as if there wasn't a LONG trail of headless bodies indicating the probable outcome.

Microsoft's behaviour over the next five years will show if I'm paranoid - or you're a dickhead. Next version of "Desktop" Windows somehow (due to an alledgely accidental oversight) won't interact properly with any smartphones but those running Microsoft software? How AMAZING! Not as if anything like that's ever happened before...! How long before Microsoft tables the suggestion that Symbian and Smartphones don't HAVE to be rivals, and they could/should sit down together and agree on common interoperability standards? How long after THAT - everyone else having put their new software development on hold until the "new standard" was agreed - that Microsoft reveals that the endless talks have broken down... but by lucky coincidence, they just happen to have spent the interim period working on a new protocol (which they strangely didn't share with anyone else) and which offers exclusive new levels of interoperability with desktop PC's?

I don't believe Microsoft's way of doing busness has changed. I think if you want to see how they're going to behave in THIS market, all you need to do is look at how they've behaved over the last decade and a half in other fields. I think they're going to behave BADLY. And I'm amazed by the combination of Pollyanna optimism and smugness that acompanies it. I suppose it easier to say "you're just anti-Microsoft" than to put your brain in gear. Microsoft aren't alone in the way they behave - most of the OTHER major players in IT play an equally dirty game. Microsoft stands out as the one who has gained the most success through a total lack of scruples. Oracle and Sun (for example) are no more honest.... but their dodgy dealing has gained them less.

[Guest morpheus2702]

My god, my god you are right!

I can see it all now... Bill Gates sends all Symbian programmers to the ovens, decides to invade Finland and occupy Nokia... :roll:

Can you tell me who shot Kennedy?

Your ability to label anyone that disagrees with you an apologist makes me question WHO is the fascist around here?

Microsoft's behaviour over the next five years will show if I'm paranoid

It won't take five years Ron!

[Guest davy]

Big Ron,

or you're a dickhead

Ah the beauty of reasoned argument. :roll:

Anyone who dares to have a different opinion to you is deemed by you to be predjudiced or a dickhead. :twisted:

If you rearrange the letters in your user name you can form the word boring. :shock:

That is exactly what your posts are becoming.

I for one am now going to ignore you in the hope that you go away.

davy.

[Guest morpheus2702]

Heheh come on Davy - I just want to see how far the paranoia goes and what he will say next!

If Ron says 'Weapons of Mass Destruction' and 'Redmond' in the same sentence I will buy you a beer. :wink:

[Guest Big Ron - No Longer a Mem]

My god, my god you are right!

I can see it all now... Bill Gates sends all Symbian programmers to the ovens, decides to invade Finland and occupy Nokia... :roll:  

Can you tell me who shot Kennedy?

Your ability to label anyone that disagrees with you an apologist makes me question WHO is the fascist around here?

Really? And there was me thinking it was Gates and crew who had spent the last decade turning one near-monopoly into another after another. An issue that you signally manage to dance around without actually addressing. When I started in the IT business, Gates was doing a few development tools and an operating system. IBM defined industry standards. He moved into the GUI business, and Microsoft started defining industry standards. Then he moved into the applications market. Now he defines industry standards there too. The he woke up one morning and decided that "The internet isn't just a fad - it's the FUTURE!" Guess who now defines industry standards for the web? Who took a piece of cross-platform freeware software called "Java", and decided to change it so that Microsoft defined the standard? Microsoft have decided that mobile communications are a BIG part of The Future. That's not MY opinion - read Bill Gates' own book "The way ahead". You can feel free to believe that the earth is flat if you want, and to claim that "round-earthism" is a fascist conspiracy. I look at the evidence. Bill Gates wakes up one morning and decides which new sector of the IT market he wants to OWN. Not just part of it - ALL of it. Development tools... operating systems... Office Application software... Internet Browsers.... Games Consoles (a war still in progress there, but with Nintendo slowly heading towards extinction, leaving a toe-to-toe slugfest between Microsoft and Sony) In all of these fields, one after another, Microsoft has entered an already existing field with a mediocre product, and by fair means or foul (more often foul than fair) within half a decade, they own more than 50% of the market - often a LOT more than 50%. Explain please why that ISN'T going to happen with mobile phones. Or alternatively you could continue to dodge issues and continue with the name-calling.

[Guest morpheus2702]

Explain please why that ISN'T going to happen with mobile phones.

Umm sorry, have I ever proclaimed that it won't? Can you tell me where I have declared that Ron?

... continue to dodge issues and continue with the name-calling.

What am I dodging? Please let me know?

I look at the evidence.

Yep, and then continue with the same mindless prattle you always spout.

Let's face it Ron, you are a dinosaur, a throwback to a time before Bill Gates and you just refuse to admit that things - rightly or wrongly - have moved on since.

Did someone seriously pissed on your chips at Orange, or stifle your 'creative approach' and you got fired or demoted? I'd be interested to know?

[Guest Big Ron - No Longer a Mem]

I started work for Orange at the end of last October. There's a three month "probationary" period - during which I decided that they weren't a company I wanted to keep working for. During that three months, I got promoted four times, and picked as one of twelve employees capable of handling the training for the top-level tech support - it normally takes two years; we did it in five weeks. At the end of the three months, Orange - without explanation beyond "we don't think you're happy working here" decided that they'd exercise their option not to convert my probation into a contract. It came as a surprise to me, and also to my colleagues. An hour before I left, a customer had rung to praise the "exemplary service" he'd recieved from me. Orange tend to treat their CSR's like mushrooms - keep 'em in the dark and shovel s*** on them from time to time. I looked around the web in my spare time, and kept up to date - looked at forums like this one, for example - which meant that I was often "ahead with the news". My former colleagues are of the opinion that being "the mushroom with the torch" - the one NOT in the dark - was a dangerous thing to be. Bitter? I was ALREADY looking for another job; my opinion of Orange as an employer had already been formed by direct experience of them. Personally, I don't know why they decided to terminate the probation of someone they'd promoted four times, but I have the suspicion that it's not unconnected with "whole workforce agreements". If you change your (un-unionised) workforce's terms and conditions of employment, then you need to get their agreement in writing. Orange DID unilaterally change everyone's terms - 8% more unsocial hours for zero extra pay. AND they waved a piece of paper under our noses and told us that it was just to INFORM us of the changes - and could we please sign here?; no time allowed to READ what the rest of the small print said - just enough to read the "old terms" and "new terms" boxes, and to sign it. I offered to sign it AFTER I'd read it - and even to read it in my OWN time. It was whisked away, and the only time I ever saw that piece of paper again was in the hands of the HR woman as she advised me that "since I wasn't happy working for Orange...." Nobody EVER mentioned "whole workforce agreements". Of course... if you don't WORK for the company any more, they don't need your signature any more. Everyone else just did as they were told and signed a two-page document WITHOUT reading it. Not just "without reaing it first"... without reading it at ALL.

[Guest morpheus2702]

It seems pretty obvious to me that they could tell you were going to be a trouble-maker...

You'll never change the system from the inside if they get your number before you even start!

[Guest Big Ron - No Longer a Mem]

The curious thing was... we got our two weeks "induction" from a charming girl who had worked for Orange for years - and who had happy memories of how things USED to be before they got taken over by France Telecom. She painted a glowing picture of what a good employer Orange was. Told us how she'd left the company, worked for someone else, and then came back. We BELIEVED. I met her a few weeks back - she no longer works for Orange and is glad not to. Then we stopped training, and started experiencing the reality. Inside a few weeks, half the people who had joined on the same day that I did had quit. Some of them quit without ANY other job to go to. The previous intake lost a similar proportion - so did the next intake. It was almost always the REAL "techies" who quit first - people withntechie backgrounds from previous jobs. One girl got pregnant - conveniently, because of morning sickness, they'd extended her probation (she'd taken some days sick leave) she too was picked as a "high flyer" and promoted... until she officially announced her pregnancy. Then - within days - they decided (without giving a reason - they don't HAVE to) not to turn her "probationary" status into a contract. Effectively - and perfectly legally - she got canned "for being pregnant". NOT a nice employer!

"Training" was kind of fun, although in the final days of the top-level training, we just "played" with the hardware - the trainers claimed that we knew more about it than they did, and that they had nothing to teach us, couldn't answer our questions... After I'd gone, I hear that the training regime has been "toughened up" - there were too many breaks, too much of a "free and easy attitude". People have a short attention span. Throw information at them for a solid hour, and anything after the first 15 minutes is a VERY hit and miss process. Curiously, smoking helps increase your attention span AND reduces the "time away" needed to reset the system. (I specialised in neuochemistry as an undergraduate - this information comes direct from my professor) So, smoking breaks - in fact ANY breaks - are an AID to learning. A five minute break every thirty minutes means that students absorb MORE. The "you're not being paid to stand around and smoke!" attitude is however very typical of the new management in Bristol: don't THINK. Do it "by the book". If the book is wrong, or makes no sense... that's not your concern.

[Guest Big Ron - No Longer a Mem]

Ypu could be right about the "troublemaker" thing - I asked awkward questions - like

"If you use your handset as a wirefree modem, is the connection synchronous or A-synchrous?"

"Ummm.... what does that mean in plain English?"

"Is the upload and download bandwidth the same?"

"Why do you need to know?"

"Because it's really BASIC information - if anyone rings up and asks, I'll feel a total prat if I can't answer the question."

"I'll go away and find out. But I still fon't see why you need to know."

It took three days to find out. NOBODY knew. Supervisons routinely listen in to calls "for training purposes" - if the person dealing with the call has a techie background, it's the supervisor who gets trained, as they hear stuff that they just don't know or understand. And they don't LIKE that - which may explain why "real" techies last weeks rather than months with tech support. Supervisors get paid a pittance more than the people they're supervising... and they usually got the job not based on ability but on time-served and for their unquestioning loyalty.

You laughed at my Bill Gates/WW2 remark... When I was with Orange, I made a not very good joke about this "I was only following orders" mentality in Orange supervisers - something along the lines of Orange deciding that Jews might be offended by racist jokes, so Orange had decided that in future (to avoid Jewish staff being accidentally offended) all jewish members of staff would be expected to wear a yellow star on their clothing so that they could be identified. The point being that supervisors would find this perfectly acceptable - and would enforce it without a thought. Not a particularly GOOD joke... but the reaction was amazing. People around me asked if it was REALLY going to happen. In other words - they thought that it was a perfectly plausible thing that Orange might decide to do. And they STILL worked for the company. It explains the high staff turnover... and why I'd decided (along with so many others) to quit as soon as I could find another job.

[Guest Martin@Home]

Wow !!! Another thread comes crashing down with Big Ron at the controls !

Jeez :roll:

If you rearrange the letters in your  user name you can form the word boring. :shock:  

ROFLMFAO !!!!!!!!!

I think I speak for everyone when I say :--

<------ Clears throat...

SHUT THE F**K UP ALREADY !!!!!

Do not poison peoples threads with your propoganda bullshit. Nobody minds a reasoned argument but with you its"my way or the highway"

Other people have opinions on stuff too, not always right but who the f** are you to tell them they're wrong all the time.

Could you at least have the decency to preach your paranoid bullshit in the Off Topic section of this forum cos I for one am getting really pissed of with educated idiots like yourself who are conceited enough to think they are better than everyone else hijacking good threads. 8)

[Guest martin]

OK, we all know that Big Ron is having another one of his flasbacks to his Orange CS days but I would say that most people do not want to see this level of argument in MoDaCo topics. It also doesn't look good for newcomers joining up :)

Ironically, this argument has earned itself a popular topic award :roll:

[Guest Big Ron - No Longer a Mem]

OK... you win. Modaco can go back to what it's slowly becoming. It started out as a good place to learn about how to overcome the problems that beset a new product - and which the supplier was unable or unwilling to fix. Now it's slowly turned into a source of endless "Coo... isn't the SPV just the COOLEST phone ever?" or "Hey, I just can't WAIT for the NEW SPV to come out!" posts - with the inevitable replies of "Yes, it is" and "Nor can I". It hasn't quite reached the fantasy-land extremes of MSMobiles.com, but it's headed that way. Modaco used to be a place where the smartest of the Orange CSR's checked in regularly to learn stuff about the product. Can't see why they'd bother with anything but the archives now.

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

And i fully agree. It seems we have a few people that are making a point of missing the point.

This makes my life difficult, a relevant topic, but taken completely to pieces not by one person, but ALL those involved. I can see those user names, and they are the same names that crop up every time a thread turns in this way.

If you want to flame, insult and put down other members, please do it by PM.

Flaming and trolling will not be accepted on the forum. You know who you are, so do i, so does Paul. Keep the forum an informative and fun place to visit please people. Not a mess of petty arguements.

Cheers.

--Mono

[Guest morpheus2702]

Duly noted guys. Apologies on my behalf.

[Guest Martin@Home]

And I fully Disagree.

This forum has evolved from the early days. If you want to post saying "wow cool phone" etc and read similar posts then there are sections for you :- "Main" - "Off Topic" etc. If you want tecchie chat and more mature informed discussion then there are also sections for that :- "Development" - "Customisation" etc.

There is only one person guilty of killing this thread. The reason that you may have noted other names that crop up around Rons posts, is that we are the sort of people who dont like the sort of "Listen to me, I know best" crap that we consistently get and feel the need to say so !

The majority of Rons posts are deliberately provocative along these lines and nearly always the underlying message is "I've worked for Orange CSR and therefore know more on the subject than anyone else. How dare you question me"

SO, your opinions are the one that matter. I've worked for Orange, remain in contact with my former colleagues, and keep up to date with the gossip.  My experience of them isn't restricted to having bought a phone from them and making occasional calls to tech support - it's FROM THE INSIDE. If I'm more critical of the way they work, most of my views would be - and are - confirmed by my former colleagues as "fair comment". Which leaves us wondering where YOU are coming from Davy. Ever-ready to have a pop at ME, ever ready to defend Orange... yet your experience of Orange seems likely to be restricted to trivial and anecdotal evidence.  Could it  be that you just don't like having your prejudices challenged by someone with a LOT more direct experience of the company?  :roll:

I Dont like being patronised and will continue to say so.

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

Then don't take it personally.

If you have issues with another member keep it to PM's.

Also your posts are no less provocative than Ron's are. Why not let other people make their own decision of their opinion of the posts on the forum, as apposed to trying to enforce YOUR opinion on them.

[Guest Paul [MVP]]

I think this thread has run it's course... :)

P