Orange SPV C600 and SPV M5000 phones arrived

SPV C600


Orange have very kindly delivered us a couple of phones to try out. We are trying out the SPV C600 pictured above and left.

They have also sent an SPV M5000, pictured below. These phones have the new Windows Mobile 5 operating system, so we will be putting both the phones and the OS through their paces over the next couple of weeks.

Watch this space as usual for the low down in the coming days.



SPV M 5000

Orange tell customers no upgrade to Windows Mobile 5

Orange UK will not be offering existing owners of SPV devides an upgrade to the new Windows Mobile 5.

"..devices previously purchased e.g C500 cannot be s/w upgraded to Windows Mobile
Version 5."

Unfortunately, this means that anyone with an SPV phone or PDA running Windows Mobile 2003 will be unable to upgrade to WM5. Microsoft are only distributing licenses direct to hardware vendors, so it's not possible to do it yourself. You can only think that there should be an upgrade path for customers wishing to upgrade to Windows Mobile 5?

On a brighter note, this does mean that the SPV SPV C600 and SPV M5000 have now been released in the UK. And they do have Windows Mobile 5. Watch this space for a review of these devices as we put them through their paces and give you the low down on Windows Mobile 5.

For a list of vendors and devices swearing to upgrade to Windows Mobile 5, click here. This list will be updated over time. If your device can upgrade to Windows Mobile 5 and is not on the list, please leave a comment or email me at chris@yellowpark.net. Come on SPV, where are you?

Dirty Vans

Dirty vans have always been the target of the opportunist. I must admit, I had to raise a smile the other week when I saw a white van with the following written into the dirt on the back:

No refugees left in this van overnight.

Live Meeting team monitor the blogosphere?

I'd like to say thanks to Neil Laver of Microsoft for following up on my blog about Live Meeting. And WOW, blogging about things works. Getting a call from the Head of Sales & Marketing, Real Time Collaboration Group Microsoft UK is not bad.

And good for Neil, because Live Meeting is his train set. So if something's wrong, who better to fix it? Further more, I'm pleased to be able to provide constructive feedback for the benefit of Live Meeting and the Microsoft Partner Program in General.

This really does hammer home the power of blogging. Thanks to James Governor of Redmonk for banging on about blogs.

More importantly, I hope this means that Microsoft will simplify the delivery of Live Meeting, and make it easier to deliver to market through the existing partner structure.

Live Meeting Rocks and Sucks

We are partners with Intercall Europe in order to deliver Live Meeting 2005 to the UK market. One point I would make, is that Microsoft in the UK have been unusually and surprisingly slow in helping us on this project. It seems to me that they have under-estimated the power of Microsoft Live Meeting and the ability of existing parners to sell this to a huge existing customer base. Hence, they have not arranged a suitable support structure for people like us on Live Meeting.

The reason I say this is because whenever I call Microsoft about resources for partners selling Live Meeting, I feel like a square peg trying to be stuffed down a round hole.

This is surprising, because I generally find Microsoft to be the best vendor in-terms of supporting partners and providing resources and collateral. While I realise that Microsoft officially only sells Live Meeting through 3 main telecoms partners in the UK, those same telecoms companies also have partner programmes for resellers selling Live Meeting and the associated telecommunications requirements. That is how we are currently selling the Microsoft Live Meeting service.

Personally, I think we are the best salespeople for this product. We are on the receiving end of technical webcasts, understand the associated technical requirements/limitations and can remove the "fear-factor" by simplifying the jargon.

Perhaps Microsoft should reconsider their approach to channel partners for this service. Dare I say, this should even be a new competency!

Microsoft will only issue a 64bit version of Exhange 12

Microsoft will only issue a 64bit version of Exhange 12. True, and yes hard to believe. Or not, depending which side of the fence you sit on.

But indeed, it is true. At this moment, IT Directors and managers accross the globe are weeping when they add up the receipts of their now redundant Dual Xeon Exchange 2003 servers. Within 3 years of Exhange 2003 being released, not only will you need to pay more to upgrade your software, but you've also gotta complemetely change your harware architecture too.

When you consider that a Xeon power supply alone starts from £110, you know you're going to have quite a few high spec servers rendered useless within seconds. Welcome to the Cockroach Motel. You can check in, but you can't check out.

Wanadoo knocks out customer internet connections

If there is one man under pressure in the IT industry at the moment, it is the IT manager that made the mistake of rolling out firmware updates to their customers wireless internet routers at 4.30pm last Friday afternoon.

What this meant is that customers lost their internet connection. If they rebooted their router while this was happening, this corrupted the firmware of the router, rendering the customer without internet access and requiring wanadoo to send a disk to refresh the sytem of the wireless router. Customers calling Wanadoo technical support were greeted with a recorded message saying "We are updating firmware on our wireless routers, please do not turn off your router while this is happening" - er yeah, thanks for the advance warning.

As everyone knows, if you loose your internet connection, probably the first quick fix is to reboot the router. You do not usually call the technical support line to check for recorded messages. If you were unlucky enough to reboot while the updates were happening, your router would be rendered useless, with no internet access.

I can only put this down to a "grand faux pas" on behalf of the IT guy that thought he was deploying the firmware updates to his test lab. Because if any IT Director thinks that its a good idea to carry out maintenance at 4.30 on a Friday afternoon, then they deserve the Spanish archer that is El Bow.

I can only imagine the number of customers rendered without internet access. The cost from sending out flash disks and the increased burden on technical support.