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15th January 2004 - Orange launched a unique international
service, offering instant voice communication and easy-to-access
group calling and messaging with the added benefit of
a real-time availability icon, so you can see who is
available and who’s not. The service is initially
being trialled by business customers.
Talk Now™– similar to the US Push-To-Talk
service but with a more advanced feature-set and richer
functionality - will give Orange customers a new way
of communicating alongside their existing voice and
messaging services. Talk Now™ will be launched
in 10 countries this year, starting with the UK and
France in Q2 2004.
Building on the Orange Experience, which promises to
be simple, compelling and personal, Talk Now™ creates
an immediate connection between two or more mobile phones
so minimal time is spent searching for or dialling individual
telephone numbers. You can see who is available to speak
or receive single or group messages instantly. Talk
Now™ will also allow Orange customers to:
• create buddy lists that can be used to facilitate
instant conference calling
• know when contacts are available to talk and
when they are busy
• speak to or message a contact who has selected
themselves as available
• record a conference call and send it to others
if they are not available
• send a voice message to other Talk Now™
users at the touch of a button
Talk Now™ will be available internationally allowing
customers easy, instant access to colleagues, friends
and family in a different country who use the service.
Orange expects to attract one million users to the new
service in the 12 months following rollout.
Speaking at the launch in London this morning, Sol
Trujillo, CEO, Orange Group, said: “As we are the
first to launch in the world we are offering something
no other company can offer. Talk Now provides the business
community with an immediate and reliable way to better
manage teams of people within an organisation. It addresses
a real need amongst businesses to disseminate or communicate
time critical information quickly and efficiently. The
service also provides consumers with an ideal way to
keep in touch with friends and family by making it easy
to instantly communicate with each other as a group
at the touch of a button.”
The launch follows Orange research into customer needs,
and successful customer trials by companies including
IBM and the RAC. The RAC is already actively exploring
the value of instant messaging and is looking to see
if this can be extended into the wireless arena. The
RAC is investigating the Orange Talk Now™ service
as a possible wireless Instant Messaging solution.
The service is scalable and will benefit from added
functionality throughout the year. Talk Now™ will
initially be available on the Orange Treo 600 –
an Orange Signature phone - with further handsets announced
later in Q2, including rugged devices for field-workers
and consumer-style handsets.
With the added functionality that it offers, Talk Now™
will be offered as a premium service. Full pricing details
will be available nearer commercial availability, with
pricing bundles geared toward specific customer markets.
Trujillo added: “Talk Now offers a level of functionality
and a feature-set that is relevant to every single one
of our 47 million customers – instant access to
each and every one of their family, friends and colleagues.”
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