Mobile Messenger Gone From Orange Devices

[Mike Temporale]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.coolsmartphone.com/news2309.html' target='_blank'>http://www.coolsmartphone.com/news2309.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Michael Pearson has sent an email about this Orange Press Release which is actually from the 3GSM show on February 13th. It may explain the decision to drop MSN Messenger from the SPV range. The Press Release states an agreement between Vodafone and Orange for seamless instant messaging.. "The companies are actively seeking engagement from other mobile operators and ISPs to adopt the same open standard approach, in order to stimulate customer demand and drive the continued success of mobile messaging services. To date, the companies have received support and interest from China Mobile, O2 UK, Telefonica Movile Espana, T-Mobile International and Turkcell."</i><br /><br />Ok, this is starting to worry me. I don't want mobile IM to end up costing my $0.10 a message. If the mobile carriers get their hands on this, something tells me that's what we'll end up seeing. I may not use it much now, but you can be certian I will use it even less then. :evil:

[ricklawson]

I don't understand this - I purchased an Orange SPV C600 Smartphone a month ago ans it has MSN Messenger installed.
I then also updated it with the push update that Orange supplied and it still has MSN Messenger.
Have you seen a phone without it installed?

[Darius Wey]

Many weeks ago at Pocket PC Thoughts, we received a whole collection of news submissions claiming that Orange had taken MSN Messenger out of the SPV M600. Back then, I checked the SPV M600 product page (http://tinyurl.com/h8um7) to see if Messenger was listed, and sure enough, it was, so we chose to sit on the submissions and instead wait for some concrete evidence.

Now I just went back to that same product page a few minutes ago and noticed that MSN Messenger is no longer listed, which is actually quite concerning. In the Windows Mobile world, the vast majority of consumers already feel that OEMs are given far too much control over OS implementation. The end result? Lack of ROM updates, crippled ROM updates, this and that. If it really is true that Orange removed MSN Messenger from the SPV M600, then I can see customers voting with their wallet. Remember, there are plenty of other fish in the sea, though having said that, it's scary to think that other OEMs may employ the same policy in the future. :evil:

[Mike Temporale]

I don't understand this - I purchased an Orange SPV C600 Smartphone a month ago ans it has MSN Messenger installed.
I then also updated it with the push update that Orange supplied and it still has MSN Messenger.
Have you seen a phone without it installed?

Currently they are removing it from their Pocket PC based devices. However, if the report from Cool Smartphone is right, it will be removed from more than that in the future. :(

[Jerry Raia]

This is not a good trend. The carriers don't really need to squeeze every penny they can out of us do they? I hope more third party developers step in and give us alternatives if MSN Messenger is left out.