Fantastic new Orange Messenger

[Guest Bill Fisher]

Rare to see such universal agreement on something!

But really - it does seem quite a shame that Orange (and probably other MOs in the not too distant future) are trying to monetize a great little app that's been working beautifully for a while - for free. I don't think there's an MO out there who could possibly have missed the outrage when there was an accidental release of a "pay for service" message on LM a few months ago. Oh well...

[Guest Confucious]

I don't think there's an MO out there who could possibly have missed the outrage when there was an accidental release of a "pay for service" message on LM a few months ago. Oh well...

It seems the guys at Orange did....

[Guest Syphon Filter]

It's utter BS. We PAY for data already. I really feel for Orange customers on this especially if they are already on data plans (albeit over-priced plans!) as part of their contracts.

If T-Mo decide to follow suit on this I will be VERY disappointed.

[Guest Confucious]

If T-Mo decide to follow suit on this I will be VERY disappointed.

T-Mo don't treat their customers with such utter contempt!

[Guest spark9990]

T-Mo don't treat their customers with such utter contempt!

I hope you're right.

my orange contract finishes in a month - i'm switching, i'm just so sick of orange.

[Guest Dark Horse]

... it does seem quite a shame that Orange (and probably other MOs in the not too distant future) are trying to monetize a great little app that's been working beautifully for a while - for free ...

The thing is, even if they did try to monetise such an app, it's doubtful it'd actually generate any major revenue streams. The whole messenger thing is still very much a low volume niche product that isn't available on all handsets. If messenger was ever preinstalled and widely available on the ubiquitous Nokia's and Sony Ericssons of the world, it might take off, especially if the school kids and local hoodies adopt it.

In contrast, SMS is a long established, high volume, high profit margin cash cow, widely in use and available to all that costs the operator a fraction of a penny to offer. In other words, if Orange were really trying to boost their coffers, they could have come up with some far more lucrative (and probably more hairbrained) scheme to really generate the cash flows instead of hammering a little used albeit useful app.

The whole sorry debacle smacks of previous Orange blunderings such as trying to segment the market via Animal Tariffs (mine's Cock & Bull, what's yours?) and the rounding up of call charges to "simplify the pricing".

Regards,

Dark Horse

Edited May 6, 2008 by Dark Horse

[Guest mstephenson]

Another genius idea from Orange. You'd of thought they'd lost enough customers to t-mobile already but seems they haven't quite finished yet. When will they learn? All this promotion will do is push even more people away from Orange rather than get them to join up. Who in their right mind would pay for something which is not only free, but should actually be on the phone anyway? So all Orange have done is remove the software, stick their name in front of it and now want money for the luxury? They could've at least designed their own software rather than just so blatantly try to charge us for something which is free. It seems clear that Orange presume all of their customers are complete cretins who will pay whatever they ask even though most networks offer not only far better deals but certainly better customer service.

So congratulations Orange, another complete balls up. I wish these people would go out of business for the shameful way they treat customers

[Guest WILBUR]

on the list of compatible handsets it doesn't actually include any windows mobile devices....

thinking about it - do you think that the whole reason that Orange has such uncompetitive data pricing (standard is £8 for 30MB vs the GBs offered by others) was just so that they could launch this product?

Edited May 6, 2008 by WILBUR

[Guest deadphill]

Does anyone know if there are official stats of number of personal plans taken out with each provider, and if year on year stats are available for this? I would be interested to know how many people have left orange over the years. I used to love them but ever since the debacle over my m2100 and then their less than actractive data plans, and now price plans only suitable for infant school children and farmers, I moved to orange in 2006, and have never looked back. Oranges customer services were awful when I left as compared to being brilliant when I started with them in 2000.

T-mobile now are like the orange I used to have. Semi helpful customer service, with people who know what they are talking about, able to do something for you normally without passing you between 7 different departments.

Has anyone ever been able to speak to orange and get answers from them or are they now an entity who do not do press anymore?

Phill

[Guest Saif]

All I can say is I'm glad I moved to 3!

I get all my MSN, Ebay, Facebook, Yahoo, Google usage thrown in for free... not to mention Skype usage.

I then just pay £5/mth for any additional internet usage on the Internet Max Add-on and I'm laughing....

T-Mo isn't the only provider out there with great deals. Plus I got a USB modem at half price.

So all in I'm on the 1100 xmins/mth, 300 3 mins, all the internet access (£25) plus a USB modem (giving me 7GB/mth for £12.5).

Can't complain... OCS retentions had nothing to offer me...

Edited May 6, 2008 by Saif

[Guest JamminJP]

They talked about this along time ago, I worked for a company that did work for O we built there first huge video phone. They were developing an orange messenger app about 5+ years ago, Now there smoking crack and trying to charge us more. I really think after 13years with O its time to move on.

The only reason I stay is for magic numbers.

[Guest mosschops]

Come on be fair guys - Orange have come up with and designed a whole new "Orange Messenger" - this must be completely different and provide a lot of extra functionality to the free MS Live Messenger which isn't already free, and I'm sure will be much better!

Hang on - what ever Orange are smoking is drifting over here and making me talk b*****s too!

How is there not someone at Orange doing even just a little bit of market research? Or even just taking a cheeky look at their competitors price list? I remember free 0800 numbers, free insurance, 24hour customer support, Orange Everyphone, talking to OCS techincal guys, dual SIM, 12 month contracts, changing my tariff to an Orange Price Match every month (my favourite) and playing Snake on my Nokia 702! I know no-one else offers these - but that is always why I chose Orange over them!

Edited May 6, 2008 by mosschops

[Guest 246810]

It's totally crazy that Orange think this will work!!

Whos' advising them? The same PR agency as Gordon Brown?

Jeeeez - as soon as this contract is up I may just ditch Orange!!

Matt

LMAO!!!

[Guest matt1971]

Hi,

Orange are offering a 250MB for £8 which aint bad - trouble is you have to have known about it before starting a new contract cos they dont offer it generally. I think it a business tariff that they are now offering (if you know about it) to personal customers.

Matt

[Guest Confucious]

Hi,

Orange are offering a 250MB for £8 which aint bad - trouble is you have to have known about it before starting a new contract cos they dont offer it generally. I think it a business tariff that they are now offering (if you know about it) to personal customers.

Matt

That's better - but 250Mb is still not enough and still doesn't help with this messenger business!

[Guest dearsina]

Being a previous Orange customer and reading this post is kinda like hearing that your ex-girlfriend has become a crack addict: A feeling of pity and smugness mixed together.

[Guest hotphil]

Yep, but if you heard she was willing to put out again big style in a particularly filthy way, you'd still go back :D

[Guest Paul (MVP)]

Erm, keep it on topic perhaps? :D

P

[Guest Syphon Filter]

That's better - but 250Mb is still not enough and still doesn't help with this messenger business!

Oh come off it, don;t even try and defend orange. £8 for 250MB?

I can see the smirks on T-Mobile faces from here!

[Guest Confucious]

And Vodafone's - but it's still better than the 30Mb they were offering! Not that they offer this to everyone by the sound of things...

[Guest 1straven]

Yep, they wont offer it to me. I'm just decided whether to move in July to a Diamond with tmobile or wait until the x1 comes out.

[Guest yarod_g14]

I Guess that i am the only person here who is baffled that any serious win mo user is still on orange!

i left when they asked for 300 plus for a universal on 50 per month tarrif! i went to tmob and got it for 20 quid. same tarrif, as someone said, the e200 days were good. but even then we were restricted to smartphones, o2 had the ppcs back then.

for me, orange suck big time, i think paul starting modaco helped them to have good retention figures for win mobile users in the past as we were all jumping at their new devices. i seriously cannot think of any reason> why i would go back to them.

ps fring mssenger is the best, it works with msn and lets u have voip through msn! and it beams it to my motorolla s9 bt headset. works with skype (voip too) and icq and google chat. tmob web and walk and fring

it is seriously a no brainer unless u are on orange payroll!

[Guest hotphil]

I dumped Orange after many years when they told me that yes, I could use data on a trip to Paris, but it would be 25 pounds/MB! On Orange France....

they've not so much dropped the ball, as sent it off to a 419-er...

[Guest clonmult]

And Vodafone's - but it's still better than the 30Mb they were offering! Not that they offer this to everyone by the sound of things...

The 250meg tariff is only available on one plan, I think its something like the £45+ p/m panther? It isn't available on others.

Still, the (truly pathetic) 30 meg is adequate for me - its enough for a month of MSN, Facebook and the odd other web page when I'm nowhere near a computer.

[Guest Malt_Vinegar]

Everyone Bashes Orange on these forums, but i still stick by them, and they seem to be providing me with decent enough plans. I go through retentions each time i come up for renewal, and always get the phone i want. They talk me through my bills and usage and provide me with a plan

Currently with Orange, I have an HTC TYTN II on a custom plan I negotiated at upgrade time through retentions. (I have a 10% loyalty discount on my account too)

I pay £30.64 for my plan + 5 quid on insurance.

In that plan i get:

-------------------------------------

1000 anytime cross network minutes

250 Text messages

-------------------------------------

+10Mb of data per day for and extra £6.81 a month

+£1.28 for itemised billing (?)

So that works out as under £44 before VAT

How does this stack up against other plans available on other networks.