It looks like the Cupid service has been up and live since yesterday and already the team has produced an impressive 135 personalised videos. I wonder just how many they’ll get through by the 14th of February? 500 videos? 800? Either way, it’s a brilliant marrying of social media and marketing.

Of course this is similar to what we saw with the Old Spice campaign a little while ago — I don’t think that matters at all though. It’s all about the immediacy and the personalisation. Bring it on.

If you’d like to get one of the Cupids to send out a personalised message of lurrrve, it’s really easy. You just need to tweet with the hashtag. All the details are right here.

Here’s a note of explanation from the o2 team:

Alex Pearmain, Head of O2’s social media love messengers, said:

 

“You could say it with chocolates, you could say it with flowers. But we thought that if you’re a social media fan then sending a romantic Valentine’s from the messenger of love himself might be a little more original! We hope the O2 Cupids will bring some couples together come February 14th.”

Heh. Love it!

Here’s the o2 Cupid Youtube channel.

The point of the exercise is to test the company’s ability to handle the disruption likely to be caused by this year’s Olympics, especially given the Olympic rowing venue is just down the road from the Slough HQ).

I really, really like the concept of this. It’s a bold step by o2 on a number of different levels and comes after the company recently introduced it’s Joined Up People offering for enterprises.

Here’s the full release:

O2 today has announced the launch of the biggest flexible working initiative of its kind. Today, employees based at O2’s Slough HQ – a quarter of its 12,000-strong workforce – will participate in a flexible working pilot, operating remotely for the day as the doors are shut and lights turned off at the business’ 200,000 sq ft office

The pilot aims to push the boundaries of what is possible through flexible working and will underpin O2’s contingency plans to manage expected travel disruption and delays during the summer’s Olympics games.   Meticulous planning has been needed ensuring that 3,000 employees have access to the necessary technology tools, services and support to enable them to work completely remotely, for the entire day.  With one third of the UK’s businesses expected to encourage their staff to work flexibly this summer, O2 will share learnings from the pilot with other organisations, to support them in their plans for managing the impact of a range of events during the summer months.

O2 believe the initiative sends a clear signal to O2’s employees, business customers of every size and other UK organisations on the advantages of working flexibly. Earlier this year, O2 launched a new service, Joined Up People, part of its Joined Up Business vision.  The service is designed to prepare and equip businesses to maximise the use of ICT and provides businesses with the flexible infrastructure needed to support applications, content and services that their employees need to complete their job wherever they are.

O2 Business Director, Ben Dowd, commented: “We believe a cultural step-change is underway affecting staff and businesses, as work increasingly becomes something we do, rather than a place that we go. Today’s office-wide flexible working initiative is an opportunity for us to take the next step on our flexible working journey and tangibly demonstrate the opportunity and potential available to British businesses today. We practice what we preach, and by asking O2 employees to work together as a team to test the company’s flexible working practices for themselves, we want to show that there are no limits – no matter how big or small your business is. By sharing experiences from across our business, from business divisions to operations, we hope to encourage more organisations to help their workforce become mobile. ”

It is hoped that the pilot will also showcase the wider economic business case for flexible working in helping to drive efficiency, productivity and innovation. O2 has previously saved over £3 million in overheads through such measures. O2 will evaluate reductions to electricity usage, CO2 emissions and travel time as employees swap their usual journey to work in favour of working from a remote location. These learnings will be applied in line with the company’s ambitious three year sustainability plan, in which O2 pledges to help over 125,000 business employees work flexibly, and collectively save over 500,000 miles of travel and over 160,000 thousand tonnes of carbon emissions.

The initiative marks the latest phase in O2’s flexible working journey, following in the footsteps of previous efforts. These include O2’s Tomorrow’s Workspace initiative, which saw the business consolidate its operations into a single campus in Slough. By enabling the workforce to be more mobile, O2 achieved a 53 per cent reduction in its carbon footprint and despite having the same number of people HQ is now operating with 550 fewer desks.

Flexible working has become an increasingly important aspect of British business culture, with a growing number of organisations and employees adopting a more flexible approach to working life as new technologies make it increasingly easy to conduct business from beyond the confines of the office. But figures from O2 suggest businesses’ policies and practices are typically narrow in their focus.

While more than a third (39 per cent) of businesses say that allowing staff to work flexible hours makes their workforce more productive, and 43 per cent believe that it helps to retain employees, existing policies are often outdated and ineffective. 77 per cent of organisations are hindering the sharing of best practice by preventing staff from working flexibly across teams, while 16 per cent still have no flexible working policy at all.

About Joined Up People: O2 has converted it’s understanding of businesses’ needs and objectives into mobile solutions tailored to help organisations address the challenges they face as employees’ work and personal lives become blurred.
Its Joined Up People service helps organisations with widely varying flexible working practices on a journey towards implementing them more consistently and effectively. The service consists of consultancy, security and mobile device management (MDM) in addition to O2’s core portfolio of devices, hardware, mobile, fixed line and broadband. It is supported by technical professional services and end user adoption training to help organisations.

Bring it on, o2! It’s going to be fascinating what results you report. I look forward to reading.

And here’s a video from the company outlining what’s going on:

Here’s a bit of Matt’s story:

If you reside in the UK and you are one of the millions of subscribers to mobile operator O2, you may be alarmed to learn that the carrier is sending your mobile number to every website you visit on your mobile phone.

The issue was brought to our attention by Lewis Peckover, who created a simple webpage to check the information that a mobile browser would send to a website when it requested data.

The story is still developing, however it’s clear that o2 has been passing your phone number to every website you visit. It’s passed in the headers — which most sites will ignore. Indeed, if your server isn’t looking for the field, then it’ll simply ignore it.

This is clearly a mistake and certainly not normal practice. If anything, I suspect it’s a misconfiguration or a standard configuration on a particular server, gateway or system at o2.

o2 will be horrified.

It’s going to be fascinating to see how they handle this. People are still hugely attached to their perceived privacy and the knowledge that every website you’ve visited via your phone could have retrieved your phone number will be massively discomforting.

The real problem is if the mainstream media pick it up. It looks like a bit of a slow news day — and it’s a terribly sexy issue, this, especially in the context of phone hacking. The headlines boiled down will make highly frustrating reading. I wouldn’t be surprised to see headlines like, “o2 exposes your phone number to every website” or “o2 gives your phone number to spammers” appearing shortly in the mainstream press.

o2 need to respond very, very quickly. I think they’ve got until midday to deliver a formal response. It’s 11am now. After midday the story could potentially gravitate from a Twitter firestorm into mainstream consciousness.

Can you imagine the implications of an adult website claiming that [insert famous person here] has visited their site 100 times in the last 2 days — and they’ve got the logs to prove it? Ooof!

What should o2 do?

Well I think that depends on how the media treat the issue. If it’s picked up by the Daily Mail anywhere near their front page, then they’ll need a mega response. Definitely.

Normal mobile users on o2 reading the story will go nuts. Folk will want to do something in response to the perceived privacy invasion, even if it didn’t actually affect them. The first instinct will be to cancel the line and churn to another network. The next instinct will be some kind of recompense — a free credit, some extra text messages or something like that. Quite possibly legions of users will demand that their phone numbers be changed.

Goodness me. It’s a bit of a mess.

There’s not much o2 can do, I don’t think, that would appease me as a normal user. I’d probably react very, very negatively to a £5 credit offer (“Is that what my privacy is worth?”).

The underlying issue here is the break down of trust that many o2 consumers will feel when they read the news. I think o2 should act decisively, positively — and if anything, they should over-react. Do everything. Offer everything. And put the CEO or a C-Level executive on camera right-away to speak to the media.

Of course we’re going to want to know how long this flaw has been live on the o2 systems; how many users have been potentially compromised and so on. That could take days to determine. So an immediate response is required now and then hourly updates should be issued throughout today and, say, tomorrow, until all the information is in o2′s hands.

We shall see.

If anyone can handle this kind of challenge, it’s o2. The team there are seriously capable. If anything, I think they could possibly use this as an opportunity to engage brilliantly with their customers and boost loyalty even more.

Bring it on, o2!

Update: Matt is back with a related post – How O2 could unwittingly help spammers conduct a nasty phishing campaign that’s worth a read.

Update 2: o2 has posted a public announcement on the matter (thanks Adrian)

Kudos to o2 Enterprise. The team specialises in helping enterprise organisations embrace flexible working. Instead of simply knocking out a few whitepapers, the company has taken a different path. It’s embraced the flexible working ethos itself! Here’s a quote from their story [PDF]:

We’ve been on a journey. We’ve saved millions. We use hundreds fewer desks. We’ve changed our culture and the way our people collaborate. And it’s all through flexible working. Or as we call it, Joined Up People.

In the highly personal case study, the company outlines just how effective the Joined Up People programme has been. Here are their three key highlights:

• We’ve saved over £3 million by cutting 550 desks (it costs £7,000 a year to run a desk)
• 100% of our flexible workers reported a better work/life balance
• The annual savings for a team of eight through virtual monthly meetings is £30,400

It’s rather refreshing to see a big tech company actually do this kind of thing rather than just talk about it. It most certainly makes the conversation with other enterprises highly authentic, given that o2′s done it all itself.

It doesn’t just stop there though.

They’ve actually put each of their heads of department ON VIDEO talking about the benefits of the Joined Up People approach. Take for instance the company’s Human Resources head honcho, Nicky Brimmer: She’s positively glowing on camera, discussing how the programme has seriously benefitted o2 employees.

This kind of direct, personal approach is really refreshing to see.

I do throughly recommend having a browse through the Joined Up People website — but most importantly, definitely have a browse of this PDF case study. It’s nicely written, not too heavy and it should get thinking good things about o2.

I sat down with Ronnie at the o2 store in Richmond-Upon-Thames on Tuesday afternoon.

When I arrived into the store a few moments beforehand and said I wanted to lease an iPhone 4S, his colleague recommended him.

“Ronnie knows all about leasing, you should be speaking to him,” said the sales assistant.

Ronnie arrived, shook my hand, introduced himself and we sat down and he logged into his sales terminal. Both of us were definitely ready to do business.

We went through the various identification points. Mother’s maiden name. Postcode. Digits from the PIN and so on.

“Yes, you’re definitely due an upgrade,” said Ronnie, glancing at his screen.

“Do you have iPhones in stock?” I asked.

He nodded, “Just the 64GB today.”

Brilliant.

“I’d like to lease that one,” I replied.

And then we hit a roadblock.

Ronnie explained that the leasing deal was only applicable to the 16GB and 32GB iPhones.

Uh oh.

“Well, I’d really like the 64GB version,” I explained, “I travel often so it’s useful to have that extra space for music, video and apps.”

Ronnie indicated I could get the 64GB version on contract (i.e. normally) no problem at all. I could walk out the shop with it 5 minutes later.

I went through the rigmarole of explaining Mobile Industry Review and that the reason I wanted to ‘lease’ was, a) because the concept fundamentally appeals and b) because I want to tell people I’m doing it — I want to experience it. This is what I do a lot at Mobile Industry Review. I stick my head in the fryer and see what happens so that I can write about it.

(Plus, I don’t want to look like an analyst — you know, one of those seriously knowledgeable chaps you see on panels at events who knows everything in theory but has only ever actually used a BlackBerry.)

Alas we reached an impasse, Ronnie and I.

I can only assume that the o2 marketing chaps couldn’t make the lease figures work for a 64GB.

I thanked Ronnie for his time and exited the shop.

Now I need to consider what to do with the £35 I’m paying o2 every month on-going. I’m way out of commitment on that line so I either need to close it or get another phone. I think, unfortunately, I’m angling for just closing it. I’m not sure if I actually need that line any more.

Anyway, thank you for your patience Ronnie!

Did you hear about o2′s new leasing programme for iPhones? It caught my attention because it’s almost something I’ve been banging on for quite a while.

My favourite operator innovation concept is that I just pay a flat fee per month and receive whatever device I want. The idea being that I finally divorce myself from the hardware. I don’t want to have to own anything. I want someone else to take the hardware responsibility. Just like I don’t own any servers any more. My businesses certainly use servers — mostly from Rackspace — but we don’t own them, maintain them, or have any responsibility for them whatsoever. I just buy the service. Rackspace deal with hard drive failures. [Or, actually, in most respects, everything is virtualised now so my company is never exposed to that issue any more.]

I’d like to do similar with my mobile phone hardware. I don’t want to have to keep on contracting for specific hardware that becomes out of date very quickly. I don’t want to have to arse about shopping around, negotiating and dicking about with contracts, up-front-payments, insurance, all that jazz. I just want it done. In one single fee, per month.

Interestingly, this is almost what o2 has introduced (full details on this page).

Here’s how it works:

The lease agreement is 12 months.

There is no hardware cost upfront so the phone is ‘free’.

Full insurance is included.

As a standard, you get 750 minutes, unlimited texts, 500mb data and unlimited wifi every month. (You can upgrade to 1GB/month for an extra £4.)

The phone is not yours. You do not own it. You’re obviously just leasing it. So at the end of the 12-month period, you must return it in ‘satisfactory condition’ or you ‘may have to pay substantial damages.’ Fair point. But remember insurance is included so if you drop the screen, they’ll sort it. It’s their handset, after all, not yours.

Now then that all sounds fairly reasonable so far, yes?

You’re probably going to take a step back from the screen when we get to pricing.

The 16GB iPhone 4S is £55/month. The 32GB is £65/month. And I presume the 64GB is ‘more’. It’s not listed on the screen though.

I think most readers will be reacting with shock and horror at 55 pounds per month.

But actually let’s remember:

1. This is for 12-months
2. It includes insurance (which is normally £12/month) or thereabouts

£55 x 12 months is £660.

The iPhone 4S 16GB retails at £499 from Apple unlocked, which leaves a balance of £161.

Now remove the £12/month insurance (£12 x 12 months = £144).

The balance is now £16. So the line rental is effectively £1.33 per month. If you follow my slightly warped viewpoint.

I know — I KNOW — I don’t actually own the phone. And across the year, I’ll have paid for the phone. And then 12-months later, I’ll have nothing to show for it. True. True.

But.

I don’t want the phone. I don’t want to have to try and flog it 12 months later when there’s a new iPhone (5) out.

I just want the experience.

I think it’s like buying and running a car: It’s expensive. It just is. It’s guaranteed to lose you money. You can, if you invest a TON of effort and time, minimise those loses a little — but it’ll still cost you money.

If you lease, it’s all up front. You’ve set your losses at a particular level. You’ve gone into it eyes open. There are no additional costs, everything is taken care of.

I think that’s what attracts me to the idea of leasing.

What’s the alternative? Well, sticking with o2, I can buy an iPhone 4S 16GB for £189.99 on a 12-month contract of £41/month. That gets me 900 minutes and unlimited texts (so slightly more mins than the 750 lease deal). That costs me: £189.99 + 12x £41 = £681.99.

It’s a valuable phone so I want insurance. 12x £12 = £144. Total cost across the contract? £825.99.

On fact value, that looks a lot more expensive than leasing.

BUT of course, after 12 months, I’d still *own* the phone if I bought it via standard contract. So I could theoretically sell the phone for at least £150, possibly £180. Maybe £200. If you assume I could flog the handset for £200, then actually, the costs are more or less the same.

Still. I like the idea of somebody else (effectively) managing my hardware. So I’m off to the o2 shop later today…

So on the way over to Euston Station I stopped off at Goodge Street and walked down Tottenham Court road to find a suitable a new tripod.

As I walked, I came across an o2 store. They’re obviously ten-a-penny in London but this one looked rather big.

But there was more.

My attention was caught my the sign on the window, pointing downstairs, that said, “The latest perk or a quiet place to work?”

Interesting.

I read on.

“A space to relax or advice about apps?”

I saw another big sign indicating that the “Workshop” was downstairs in the basement (the ground floor of the shop is a standard o2 shop).

A place to work, I thought? Like a hot desk? I looked down into the basement from outside the shop and so a few folk working at funky looking desks. I saw people milling about with what looked like cappuccinos.

Laden with a ton of film equipment baggage (including the new tripod) I popped into the store later on. I had a look about the normal shop and admired the BlackBerry 9900 (free on £37/month for 24 months by the way). A chap called Karl asked me if I needed any help.

“Actually,” I said, “What’s the workshop all about?”

I was expecting a mumbled 5-word explanation given the fact I wasn’t actually aiming to buy a contract there-and-then. You know what most sales executives are like.

Turns out Karl was rather well informed.

“Why don’t you pop down and have a look around?” he asked.

I nodded and we walked downstairs. I have to say I was impressed. Karl pointed out the hotdesk-ish area with helpful powerpoints and free WiFi. Knowing o2, I trust it’ll be super-fast.

I saw some tea/coffee making facilities.

I saw more folk working away on MacBooks (I should hope so).

I saw a genius bar (a la Apple). If you’ve any questions whatsoever, you can rock up there and one of the o2 Gurus will sort you out.

I saw private pods to the back of the store — most of them in use. Karl explained that this is where you can go to discuss your requirements. So if you’re looking for a contract (and, you know, to do some proper business with o2), you don’t have to stand in the busy consumer store discussing stuff. You can sit down and take your time about it. I watched as one lady animatedly pointed back and forth to a screen within her pod, whilst the sales chap nodded away. I bet they’re doing a lot of business this way. I felt like changing my primary deal away from Vodafone to o2. 60 seconds and I was already nodding away with delight.

“And this is our training room area,” said Karl, motioning toward a glass meeting area, filled with chairs, tables and screens. Companies are being encouraged to hold workshops there — very similar to the Apple mini lecture theatres you might have seen in some of their bigger stores.

Indeed there was a lot of ‘Apple’ going on around the place — white walls, clean lines, nice decor. This is no bad thing. It didn’t look like a copy of an Apple Store. It looked better, I thought.

I wasn’t too clear on whether I could just drop in and start working though. Clearly it was possible. But I think the intent behind the hotdesks is that you might get stuck into some work whilst you’re waiting to see a Guru, or a sales assistant. I don’t think they’re designed for you to arrive at 9am and leave at 5pm. You can apparently book meeting rooms though. And that’s rather interesting.

Indeed the whole thing is flipping exciting.

I don’t know the whole story yet. All I’ve got is a bit of an intro from Karl — 2 minutes worth of ‘oh, nice’ — and a story I found via Mobile News. I didn’t want to impose on Karl or the team there unannounced. I’ll need to do some more research.

What I find exciting is that this is true innovation. It’s proof of the operator recognising that the basic stuff — calls, texts — it’s all commodity. What have you done for me lately? What do you offer me beyond the commodity? What’s the *difference*? Where are the real benefits — and I’m not talking about getting priority access to some music gig. I can already afford the best possible tickets.

I like the idea of being able to ‘touch down’ for 30 minutes at my local o2 store. And while I’m there, get someone to sort out an upgrade. And have a diet coke. Frankly, o2 can afford it. Especially if they’d like to continue getting cash out of me. I’d happily do a deal whereby I paid £29 a month to be able to ‘touch down’ at the local o2 store, check my mail, grab a coke, charge my phone, take a conference call in a bit of privacy (provided I booked ahead with the o2 store app). Or I’d be happy to move to a new price plan that ‘included’ this.

I’ll do some more investigation into the workshop element of the store in due course. The Mobile News site has a good bit of background.

By the way: You can find the workshop photo set here via o2′s official Flickr account.

They’ve created an international calling card application that you can download for your app. It’s a really nice idea — and something that I think most o2 customers who call abroad now-and-again should have on their phone.

If you’re a regular caller abroad then obviously, you should buy a special price plan or add-on to help mitigate the costs. However I think most users won’t call abroad enough to warrant an extra £5 or £10 a month on top of their standard price plan.

And when you want to phone the States, that’s when things get tricky as you’re likely going to have to pay lots of cash for the privilege.

Going to the local store to pick up a calling card is an option. But it’s a hassle.

An infinitely better experience is to download the all new o2 International Calling Card app. It’s a genius concept and a beautiful implementation.

Here’s how it works:

Step 1 – Download the app for free
Step 2 – Buy your calling card through the app, using your iTunes account
Step 3 – “scratch” off the panel to reveal your pin
Step 4 – click on make a call and either dial the number or select from your contact list.

That’s right, you scratch off the panel to reveal your PIN! Heh! A very cool addition, that.

I am particularly impressed that you can bill the cost of the card to your iTunes account. Seamless.

I’m going to give this one a go.

The app is free from iTunes and available now.

Let’s have some screenshots then…

The app frontpage:

Buying calling credit with your iTunes account:

Unwrapping and scratch off your PIN! Note — I particularly like the way you can send the card by email/text. Very useful.

To make a call from the app with your credit, just dial the international number and press call…

And once you press ‘call’, the app sticks on the access number for you and places the call.

Nice work o2!

Good news. I’m pleased to see o2 has jumped on to Youtube to establish a help channel for their customers. It’s called Guru TV and it boasts a whole host of instructional videos featuring topics like, ‘how to setup WiFi on a BlackBerry’ and ‘How to change wallpaper on a Sony’.

Some of the videos have already attracted thousands of views. No wonder. They’ll be super-helpful for many o2 (and non-o2) customers.

Here’s the announcement from o2:

O2 today unveiled a new You Tube channel, O2 Guru TV, offering free support and advice to help customers get the most of their mobile technology. O2 Guru TV aims to help make mobile technology accessible to everyone regardless of their level of technical expertise.

It follows last year’s launch of the in-store Guru service, which currently employs 150 Gurus in O2 stores throughout the country, and is due to expand to over 350 by the end of this year. The O2 Gurus are not only knowledgeable about mobile technology; they are also passionate about helping people and trained to explain things in simple, everyday terms.

O2 Guru TV is completely free to access and open to everyone – not just O2 customers. There are currently over 400 videos available on the channel, covering a range of the most common queries related to popular devices. It also offers helpful hints and tips on how to get the most from your device, from common iPhone problems such as how to use your iPhone as a mouse set up your iPhone Bluetooth to more universal tips such as or how to get live traffic information on your phone.

Whether demonstrating how to do something as basic as sending a text on a BlackBerry or something more complex such as transferring contacts from one phone to another, the O2 Guru TV videos feature clear, step-by-step instructions . An important principle of the O2 Gurus is that they are intended purely to help, not to sell, and the same is true for O2 Guru TV. The videos are not designed to promote any particular product or O2 service, so users can experience free, impartial support and advice for their technology.

Sally Cowdry, Marketing Director, O2 said; “O2 Gurus are our most passionate and knowledge experts and can translate complex gadgets into something that everyone can easily understand. We know how much customers value our in store Gurus and with the launch of O2 Guru TV we’re making it even easier for anyone to get technical help and advice from O2.”

With over 50 videos being added every month, O2 Guru TV is one of the fastest growing channels of its kind on YouTube.

Telefonica is well known for being serious about working with developers — and I’m pleased to see continual innovations and iterations in their approach as the market evolves.

Here’s the overview from James:

Hi Ewan,

I’m writing to you and the good people at Mobile Industry review as we wanted to be the first to let you know about the launch of Telefonica’s new global developer platform – BlueVia.

We’ve made mistakes when reaching out to developers before (see Simon Maddox’s Mobile Industry Review post from earlier this year about one of the O2 Litmus developer competitions we ran) but we’ve been listening to and working closely with our developer community to learn from those mistakes, improve upon the features our community liked, and evolve the platform to something closely aligned with what developers are really looking for from a telco.

BlueVia is the new global developer programme from Telefonica that helps developers take apps, web services, and ideas to market. The platform lets developers monetise their apps by plugging in powerful, risk free API’s offering revenue share business models. Altogether, BlueVia represents now the possibility to access more than 80 million customers. And it will be more in the near future.

We’re all about more revenues for developers, clear routes to market and an addressable audience – all in a risk free environment.

The platform is currently in closed beta, so you have to register as a developer to receive an invite (or just give me a nudge on Twitter @jamesparton), but most of the site is public for you and all Mobile industry Review readers to take a look around.

Feel free to get in touch with me for more information, but I hope you like what you see with BlueVia and we look forward to sharing more news with you as the platform develops.

Best,

James

Brilliant, thank you very much James. Every success to you and the team.

I’m looking forward to hearing more about how things go.

I got this note in from Mark who’s having some trauma with o2 and Palm. Have a read…

Hi Ewan,

I have been a fan of Palm for many years starting back in 1996 with a US Robotics Palm 1000 and over the years have purchased many of their products. Through blind loyalty I even replaced a Treo 650 with a Centro despite being ridiculed by my mates who at the time were all buying iPhones. When the Pre was announced it was fantastic news as I finally had a device to counter some of the stick I was getting from the Apple fanboys. After the long wait between announcement and UK availability I signed up for an 18 month contract on o2 the morning they become available here in the UK (Nov 6th?).

So impressed was I, that when my wife’s Nokia came out of contract in Feb 2010 I immediately convinced her to go for a Pre on an 24 month contract on o2.

We were happy Palm Pre users for months.

Recently though the power switch on my wife’s Pre stopped functioning correctly. It responds if pressed with herculean effort but doesn’t work otherwise. My wife assured me that it just stopped working and she hadn’t dropped it or damaged it anyway.

A bit of googling found that others also reported similar problems:

http://forums.precentral.net/palm-pre/202448-pre-power-button-not-functioning.html

http://forums.palm.com/t5/webOS-Hardware/Pre-power-button/m-p/257899

http://gdgt.com/discuss/power-button-not-working-recently-i-5vp/

Especially interesting is this post which claims Sprint acknowledge it is a known hardware problem:

http://forums.palm.com/t5/webOS-Hardware/Broken-Power-Button/m-p/241625

“I am bumping this thread to report the same problem. I took the phone into Sprint on Saturday and they told me that this is a known hardware problem. They said Palm is aware of it as well and they are replacing the phone with no questions asked. ”

So I took the Pre to an o2 shop, explained that it was broken and required fixing under warranty.

A week later I get a call saying that the phone is damaged and that a repair will cost 117.5 GBP. When asked for an explanation of the damage there was a very vague explanation of “crack behind the screen”. The screen does not have a crack in it (although this is also a common problem with Pres – see http://forum.o2.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=30038) so I do not understand the comment nor the relevance to the power button.

I asked for the phone to be returned so as to check its condition. The letter that came with it simply said the phone was damaged and would cost 117.5 to repair which I had declined. No details of damage were given. I (admittedly not a trained phone engineer) cannot see any problem with it.

It seems that many other Pre users have experienced similar problems with o2 refusing to accept liability for a phone repair under warranty due to cosmetic damage of the phones:

http://forum.o2.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=50595

http://forums.palm.com/t5/webOS-Hardware/Palm-Pre-repair-service-in-the-UK/td-p/312993

http://forum.o2.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=48955

The fee is always the same – 117.5 GBP

The justifications are often vague.

It appears that o2 are hiding behind a blanket “It is damaged” response as a simple means of not having to cover the cost of repairs themselves and if so, this is unacceptable.

I do not have a problem with Palm – I still love it. I bought 2 Palm Pres from o2 and think they have a duty of service to provide me with a handset fit for purpose and free from manufacturing defects. If they believe my phone fault is as a result of damage then they should provide a detailed explanation in their rejection of the warranty claim. Are o2 simply giving up on Palm and unconcerned if they piss of handset owners? Are o2 hoping people will give up trying to get a problems fixed by o2 and go to Palm direct instead?

I have asked @o2 several times via Twitter for info about justification for repair estimates but have yet to receive a response. Thought you might be interested in this and possibly have some insight into the problem.

/Mark

Next time, Mark, get her to buy an iPhone. Because as long as it’s in warranty, you can avoid all this tossing around. It’s simply too much hassle. That’s why Apple instructs and empowers their team members to take one look at the issue and — provided you’re in warranty — get you a new one from the back. It’s simply not worth winding up the customer. And the amount of to-and-fro just ends up costing everyone more and more money. I wish more organisations adopted a can-do approach.

In the United Kingdom, however, we don’t generally get this, do we? Instead we all arse about with weeks and weeks of back-and-forward.

But who’s at fault with this specific issue.  What do readers recommend Mark does next?

At least that was my first thought, then I read it a bit more closely:

..o2 called in the police after losing £1.2m in July alone.

£1.2m in one month!

If they targeted the five UK operators equally, then that’s £6m a month. Yes, a month. Even if o2 was the hardest hit then it’s probably still in the region of £3m a month. So how the hell did the UK operators let this happen? It surely can’t be that difficult to spot in excess of £1m walking out the door. Or can it? And is it negligence in spotting this that keeps my tariffs (and yours) so high?

So I thought I’d ask a couple of experts if they could help explain it to me.

- – - – -

First up, I spoke to Tal Eisner, Senior Director of Product strategy for cVidya Networks. I asked him what his first reaction was to the news:

“In my opinion, the case in question was a master plan and therefore it was quite successful for the people who committed it. The fraudsters not only stole some phones and produced calls, they shipped the phones abroad in order for these calls to go unnoticed, or at least unnoticed while in progress.”

“GSM Operators have been utilising a procedure in the past 2-3 years that goes under the name NRTRDE (Near Real Time Roaming Data exchange). This procedure obligated the operator to send details of roaming calls to the home network of the roamer in time frames of 4 hours, that’s in order to decrease the amount of abuse and fraud while roaming.”

“I strongly suspect that these fraudsters knew which countries to ship their phones to. They did it to countries that have NOT deployed these procedures and thus the time frame of reporting is like the “old times”, pre NRTRDE, which is up to 72 hours. A long enough time to perform many calls – costing the operators a fortune. Smart guys!”

So how this could have happened, how was the international calls element of this important?

“These calls have been deliberately done on roaming because in such cases the operators have no real time detection of the traffic. Moreover, the fraudsters, I suspect, knew in advance where to ship the stolen phones to and originate the calls from. They did it from countries where there is no NRTRDE procedure in place and therefore the home networks received the data of the calls after a 72 hours delay.”

“Operators should deploy NRTRDE ASAP. [They should also have] a Fraud Management System that has all the sufficient tools in order to have as much control as possible over roaming traffic. Roaming is highly expensive and controlling it with 24/7 tools can save millions of dollars every month.”

He was too polite to mention that the cVidya Fraud View product could help here!

- – - – -

Then, I spoke to Paul Paterson, the Operations Director for ImpulsePay. I also asked him what his first reaction was.

“I wasn’t particularly surprised that this sort of thing was going on, but I was surprised with both the amount of money involved and the time it was allowed to go on for. I think o2 must be relieved that they spotted it when they did and I can understand that they might think that it is a victory against fraudsters. But the reality is that they actually lost £1.2million in a single month!”

Premium rate calls seemed to play an important part in this, why?

“Because it’s easy. Setting up a premium phone line abroad takes minutes, and there aren’t really many safeguards against bad debt, as mobile contracts are credit based. So if a fraudster is willing to use stolen information to set up a new contract phone, they can pretty much get away with this type of activity for at least a short time. There are also similar scams involving premium rate messages.”

“Fraud prevention systems are key. For example, if o2 had a system in place which allowed it to flag possible fraudulent activities in real-time, they could avoid this happening in the first place. I think the operators need to look into investing in new systems that flag up, say, a brand new user who is suddenly calling [or texting] premium rated phone lines abroad at hundreds of pounds a month. Given this latest story, and I’m sure a few others that we haven’t heard of, it would be a very worthwhile investment for them.”

- – - – -

Thanks guys, a really interesting take on it.

I keep on having to remind myself that many mobile operator systems are held together with what appears to be very expensive pieces of string. Dear me.

Michael at MobileBurn highlights a tweet from o2 Germany pointing out that the all new Samsung Galaxy Tab Android tablet will hit the network in October costing €99 up front with a €27.50 contract.

If you translate those prices directly to sterling, that equates to £82 up front and £22 per month. Now I reckon the o2 UK prices will be slightly in advance of that, but at this level, could you see yourself picking one up soonish?

Or no? Too much of a gimmick? Far too happy with your iPad?

I wonder how the operator subsidy is going to change the market dynamics. I think there’s a lot more people who’d be clamouring for an iPad if it was £49 or £99 up front with a monthly contract, rather than around 500-700+ pounds straight on the credit card.

Here are the details from the announcement:

Telefónica O2 Germany is giving its customers a complete search, mapping and navigation system, effective immediately. It doesn’t matter whether you are travelling by car or on foot: almost any GPS-enabled mobile phone will become a pocket-sized route planner with Telmap Navigation – including the latest traffic information from ADAC.

Telmap Navigation uses spoken and graphical navigation instructions to guide the user to the desired destination in a precise and step-by-step manner. It is as reliable and easy as a conventional in-car navigation system. The solution is also ideal for pedestrians. For example, you can navigate to the most important sights when visiting a city and at the same time search for any bars, restaurants or hotels that are close by. O2 offers this service to its customers for FREE – regardless of whether it is a prepaid or fixed-term agreement. The only fees are for the mobile data transfer and so O2 recommend the mobile surf flat rate for customers who do not already have a data plan.

All you need is an O2 GPS-enabled mobile phone. Effective immediately, Telmap Navigator is preinstalled on many new GPS-enabled mobile phones. Customers who are already using GPS-enabled mobile phones can download the new free solution directly to their phones at http://wap.telmap.com/o2de/. Telmap Navigator is already available on numerous devices, for example for the Motorola Milestone, HTC Touch HD2, Samsung Galaxy and Sony Ericsson W995. A version for Palm WebOS is planned for the summer of 2010.

I’m theorising that this deal wouldn’t have been at all possible this time last year. But the changing market conditions have, I suspect, made it a little bit easier for o2 Germany to negotiate.

Good news for the consumer.

And an especially confusing situation if you’re an o2 DE customer using a nice new Nokia… you’ll probably want to use the on-board Ovi Maps. Will Telmap Navigator be preinstalled on Nokia devices too?

Yeah… it’s precisely what I’d have done. It’s a winning strategy. An absolute winning strategy, whether the company truly did screw things up or not. You really do have to admire them.

They know if you actually want an iPad right now, you’ll order it from the States. Of course they do. But the fact that they’ve delayed it has made Twitterlines (“Twitter-headlines”) all afternoon resulting in a ton of coverage. Even The London Telegraph saw fit to announce the delay on the top of their site, ‘above the fold’.

At the same time, of course, behind the scenes this morning, frantic phone calls and emails were zipping between Apple’s Mission Control and Vodafone, o2 and Orange. Apple famously approve everything to do with the mobile operator’s marketing and public relations announcements and they strictly enforce it. Which is why, this afternoon, I got this from Vodafone:

Vodafone today announced that it will offer dedicated iPad price plans for all models from the end of May in Australia, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.

The iPad lets users browse the web, read and send email, enjoy and share photos, watch HD videos, listen to music, play games, read ebooks and much more, all using iPad’s revolutionary Multi-Touch user interface.

For more information about iPad please visit www.apple.com/ipad.

And this from o2:

O2 today announced that it will offer dedicated iPad price plans for all models from the end of May in the UK.

The iPad lets users browse the web, read and send email, enjoy and share photos, watch HD videos, listen to music, play games, read ebooks and much more, all using iPad’s revolutionary Multi-Touch user interface.

For more information about iPad please visit www.apple.com/ipad.

I shit ye not. Even the apostrophe in the second paragraph is the same style indicating it’s been cut’n'pasted from Apple approved master release.

What about Orange? What did they have to say? Well, curiously, it was exactly the same…

Orange today announced that it will offer dedicated iPad price plans for all models from the end of May (in France, UK, Spain and Switzerland).

The iPad lets users browse the web, read and send email, enjoy and share photos, watch HD videos, listen to music, play games, read ebooks and much more, all using iPad’s revolutionary Multi-Touch user interface.

For more information about iPad please visit www.apple.com/ipad.

This kind of stage management is simply phenomenal to witness.

So, in case you didn’t already know: The iPad UK/European launch is delayed. And those operators will be offering ‘price plans’ for the iPad.

What kind of price plans? That information isn’t available at this time.

How much will the price plans be? That information isn’t available at this time.

What price will the iPad be in the UK? That information isn’t available at this time.

This does however mean that if you’re a mobile developer, you’ve got another 30 odd days worth of development time before the Great Unwashed gets hold of the iPads here in the UK.

Have a look at this photo sent in by a rather annoyed reader. It’s from the back of yesterday’s Guardian UK.

Don’t you think it’s getting ridiculous that o2 are still running the ‘iPhone only on o2′ advertisements? I first wrote about this two weeks ago.

At what point does this become a trade description violation?

The o2 team — many of whom are usually avid readers and responders to the MIR site, have been mysteriously quiet on this issue. What’s going on chaps?

Surely this isn’t a deliberate marketing strategy from the UK’s 2nd largest network? Surely they’re not that panicked by Orange’s entry into the marketplace?

You can, by the way, pick up a shiny new iPhone from Orange at http://shop.orange.co.uk/iphone/.

The iPhone. Now only on Orange.

You can bet your boots o2 would be screaming blue murder if Orange started running ads with that strapline…

Reader Simon Maddox popped into the o2 store at the huge Westfield Shopping Centre in West London today and had a look around. He caught this image and yfroged it to me:

This is not good, o2.

Orange have been offering the iPhone for a little while now — isn’t it time you updated your in-store signage?

Carphone and Phones4U swapped their branding around just before launch day so that they’re displaying both the Orange and o2 logos. Unfortunately every o2 store that I’ve tried to visit to verify this has been either closed or being remodelled. Have you been in an o2 shop recently and witnessed this? Or is this an isolated experience?

And it’s far too good a story for most pundits not to have written, me included. The truth, of course, is a little less dramatic but significant nonetheless.

While the Palm Pre is undoubtedly the company’s comeback device, the big bet is the accompanying webOS that powers the Pre along with the subsequently released Palm Pixi. In fact since the second device running webOS was unveiled, Palm have announced that, moving forward, they’re dumping Windows Mobile to pursue a single OS strategy. Thanks Redmond for easing the transition away from the dying PalmOS to the newly born webOS. But make no mistake, that’s all you were good for.

It’s in this context that when reviewing the Palm Pre it’s more tempting than usual to consider the phone’s hardware as separate from the operating system it runs on. So that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

(Spoiler: The hardware is OK but webOS is where things get really exciting.)

Hardware

As iconic as the iPhone’s industrial design has become, the Pre largely attempts to carve out its own distinctive cues unlike the raft of ‘slate’ copycats churned out by LG, Samsung and others.

Aside from the portrait slide-out and arched QWERTY keyboard (more on that below), when closed the device follows the natural lines of a pebble or so the marketing fluff goes. Think chubbier and heavier than the iPhone and with curvier lines to match.

It’s also smaller in width and height due to housing a 3.2 inch (rather than 3.5) multi-touch capacitive touchscreen. That’s MULTI-TOUCH and CAPACITIVE. I hope Nokia is reading.

The overall effect is that the Pre is really comfortable to hold, much more phone-like if you will, although it could be a tad lighter.

In terms of build quality, the Pre is certainly plasticky and the slide mechanism does wobble a little but I haven’t found it to be the deal breaker that some reviews have elevated it to. However, this particular Pre seems to suffer from the loose battery problem that others have reported online, which means that the phone occasionally shuts down involuntarily. (Tech historians will know that a very similar problem plagued the original Palm Pilot PDA). The remedy, apparently, requires the contact pins to be bent back into shape or the insertion of a thin piece of foam below the battery.

Next up, let’s deal with that QWERTY keyboard.

I’m disappointed.

It’s not that it’s rubbish but it’s definitely a bit of a let down. I want to love it, I really do as it ticks so many boxes. It’s a real keyboard. It’s portrait not landscape. And I have no issue with it being a slider.

But as much as I’ve practiced, I still can’t get up to the typing speeds I achieve on my Nokia E71 or a BlackBerry or even an old PalmOS-powered Treo. The keys on the Pre are too stiff and the top row too close to the protruding edge. There’s also not enough error correction built into the software and no auto-completion either, both of which could have helped to mask the keyboard’s deficiencies. However, for those who like me don’t get on well with an onscreen keyboard, it’s still preferable having a real one.

The Pre’s call quality proved to be good, although the speakerphone is a bit shrill, and despite O2′s reputation for having it’s network hammered by iPhone users, data connections held up well. I also haven’t experienced any problems joining various WiFi hotspots.

In terms of battery life, the Pre is probably its own worst enemy, such is the device’s always-on and multitasking capability (see below). That said, there’s certainly room for improvement. With moderate use of WiFi for web browsing, 3G pulling in email, a few tweets and calls here and there, you should be good for a full day. The temptation, of course, is to do a lot more, more of the time, in which case you won’t want to be too far away from a charger. However, this is where the utterly brilliant Touchstone comes into play.

The Touchstone is the Pre’s optional (and pricey) desktop ‘inductive’ charger. To charge the Pre you place it face up onto the Touchstone – it snaps into place via a magnet – and the device ‘wirelessly’ begins charging. The phone also sits at a slight angle, perfect for viewing emails and incoming messages while the Pre’s battery is getting a top up. Of course, unlike a certain popular smartphone, the Pre’s battery is also user swappable, so carrying a spare is another option.

The Pre’s camera is mediocre. It’s 3 megapixels and fixed focus, with a single LED flash. There’s no dedicated hardware shutter button – it’s a purely onscreen affair – and like most smartphones, the camera app takes a few seconds to launch, after which, however, shots can be taken in fairly quick succession. In summary, picture quality is passable but the Pre is certainly no camera phone. This is most evident by the complete lack of video recording capability.

To summarize the Pre’s hardware, Palm have made some really smart design choices. The non-iPhone copycat design, the bright 3.2 inch capacitive touchscreen, multi-touch, a physical portrait QWERTY and the optional Touchstone ‘inductive’ charger. But execution, in places, is poor. The wobbly slider, sub-par keyboard, and smallish and poor fitting 1150mAh battery immediately spring to mind.

However, the Pre’s software or specifically webOS tells a very different story.

Software

I’m going to shoot from the hip. Based on its ease-of-use and in particular the way multitasking and notifications are handled, Palm’s webOS has the best User Interface of all current mobile operating systems. It’s a contentious thing to say I know and I’m admittedly discounting Maemo 5 as the N900 has yet-to-be-released but I have lived extensively with all recent flavors of Symbian S60, Windows Mobile, Android, iPhone OS, INQ and a whole bunch of dumbphones.

OK I’ll admit that getting to grips with webOS takes a little longer than iPhone. Yep, all ten seconds longer, less than the time it takes to actually sit through the interactive tutorial that ships with the Pre.

The additional learning curve mostly involves getting up to speed with the gesture area and the card system that webOS uses for multitasking. Otherwise, the Pre borrows many of the UI ideas that we first saw on the iPhone, such as kinetic ‘flick’ scrolling or the use of an inverted pinch to zoom in on web pages, images and other documents. There’s also the usual grid of app icons and these, like the iPhone, can be re-ordered and organised across multiple screens, accessible by swiping left or right.

It’s all perfectly finger-friendly, as you’d expect, and the visible feedback given with each finger press in the form of an onscreen ripple is particularly helpful.

One of the most refreshing aspects of webOS is that essential toggles and settings are brought to the surface in the form of a dedicated app for each instead of being buried in one gigantic kludge of a menu S60-style. Examples include discrete apps for WiFi and Bluetooth, adjusting screen brightness and time-out, and toggling GPS on and off. Accessing preferences within each app is also consistent via a finger optimized drop down menu. The result is that I rarely wasted time hunting for a particular setting, something that can’t be said of most mobile OSes.

The card system employed by webOS to support multi-tasking is GENIUS.

It’s one of the UI designs that is deceptively simple and after you’ve used it, you’ll find it hard to go back to the old way of doing things. To switch between running apps, you press the hardware menu button and the Pre zooms out to display each instance of a running app as a card side by side. You then swipe left or right until you’re focused on the card displaying the app you want to switch to, tap on it and webOS zooms in and that app is brought to the front. It’s not dissimilar to Mac OSX’s Expose feature and is almost identical to the way Safari Mobile on iPhone handles switching between open web pages.

Notifications on webOS are equally well thought through. For example, when a new email or text message arrives, no matter what app is in the foreground, a notification area pops up at the bottom of the screen. These can then either be acted upon, such as reading the full email, or dismissed with the swipe of a finger. If there is no interaction after a set period of time the notification is minimized. It’s a very efficient but non-obtrusive system. Far, far better than iPhone’s push notifications and and still an improvement over Android.

A flagship feature of webOS is the way it plays nice with third-party Cloud services, something Palm is calling Synergy. That means syncing with Gmail, Google Contacts and Google Calendar, along with similar support for Facebook. I’ve found Synergy to be reliable and, as noted previously, dead easy to setup (see my Day One impressions: “In some ways the webOS-powered Pre is the Google phone I was always hoped Android would be”).

Palm’s biggest issue with Synergy, however, is that it’s no longer a unique feature. Almost all of Palm’s competitors are now offering or talking up a unified address book that pulls in and converges data from Facebook and other Cloud services – HTC, INQ, Motorola,Google (Android 2.0) and Vodafone (360).

The latest version of webOS also adds LinkedIn to the list supported by Synergy but the UK is currently at least one iteration behind.

You read that right.

Despite getting the Palm Pre three months after the US, we’re saddled with an out of date version of webOS. Palm plans to eventually offer parity between US and UK versions, but again, we’ll have to wait a while. Currently, along with Synergy support for LinkedIn, UK Pre owners are missing much better cut ‘n’ paste and overall speed improvements. I did, however, find a really nice LinkedIn app in Palm’s own app store.

Talking of apps, this is one area where webOS is far behind the iPhone. On the Pre, the app cupboard is fairly bare but it’s slowly filling up a little.

The two questions I’d ask: does the Pre have 1st or 3rd party apps for the features you need? What does the future look like? i.e. is webOS attracting developers?

As for essential features, for my own needs the Pre has most apps covered. YouTube, fantastic web browser, push email, Twitter client, weather, Google Maps, Flixster (movie reviews), PDF and Word viewer, Instant Messaging, Podcasts etc. I’ve also noticed many new apps being added on a daily basis, even in the week or so that I’ve had the Pre.

By the way, the webOS web browser is very, very nice, at least on par with the iPhone, which helps to fill some of the gaps in third-party apps e.g. Facebook.

I also think webOS will/is attracting developers in sufficient numbers and I’m very optimistic about the future of third-party apps. For evidence look no further than the vibrant homebrew community that, like the iPhone’s original jailbreak development community, started before Palm released an official Software Development Kit. And about that SDK, it was only made public and widely available a few months ago. Palm also recently made two smart hires to boost its developer relations.

In other words, it’s early days but on the app front the signs are good.

And that pretty much sums up webOS. It has a very bright future if technology and UX is to win through. Whether or not Palm can sell enough webOS devices to remain cash positive in the meantime – the Pre is a good start and the Pixi should do well – only time will tell.

I do hope so.

- – – – -

Steve O’Hear is a tech journalist and consultant based in London. Steve writes the blog last100 and has written for numerous publications, including The Guardian, ZDNet, ReadWriteWeb and Macworld. He also wrote and directed the Silicon Valley documentary, In Search of the Valley. You can follow Steve on Twitter here.

It works really nicely: Every time you top-up your account, you get a text back from o2 with a ‘surprise’.

Surprises range from extra texts, picture messages and minutes through to prizes such as holidays, TVs and mobile phones.

It’s a really smart way of encouraging and rewarding customers to keep on topping up regularly. And, although I’m not an o2 PAYG customer, I can imagine I’d take a small (but nevertheless powerful) amount of joy at ‘winning’ a little surprise each time I topped up.

o2 Media, the chaps behind this, have decided to open up their platform to allow other brands to participate. The concept being that advertisers get access to a set of customers who’re already in the middle of ‘interacting’ and who’re ready and waiting for a ‘surprise’ deal or offer.

Blockbuster video got stuck into this channel. Here’s how it worked:

O2 customers visiting Top-up Surprises to claim their reward were offered a 30 day free trial of Blockbuster’s unlimited rental service, a £10 voucher to spend in a Blockbuster store or online and £1 off the monthly fee if they chose to take up the unlimited rental service. 52% of customers chose to take up the Blockbuster offer and of these 11% have already redeemed the offer voucher.

“This has been one of our most successful acquisition campaigns to date,” said Gerry Butler, Senior Vice President Europe, Blockbuster. “We’ve been delighted by the response rates which exceeded our expectations and look forward to continue to work with O2 Media to deliver campaigns through this highly effective channel.”

Very cool indeed. For the right products and services, I think this channel could very quickly become a key channel in the mobile marketing mix. I don’t think it’ll be long before Pizza and other fast food chains are getting stuck in too.

If you’d like to see what the end consumer sees, visit the site: http://topupsurprises.o2.co.uk/

This site also happens to be the highest trafficked UK site in the ‘Entertainment – competitions’ segment according to Hitwise. Good exposure for advertisers.

Talk to your mobile media buyer for more details on o2 Surprises.

I’d been instructed to meet a PR called Greg at a secret location in London’s Soho. Once there I’d receive a short briefing and handover of Palm’s much anticipated smartphone, the Palm Pre. The device goes on sale in the UK today exclusive to O2 and priced to match the original iPhone 3G. It wasn’t enough to send a review loan by courier or recorded post as is the norm with these things. No, on Palm’s insistence, this had to be done in person to talk me through the Pre’s setup.

Paranoid I thought.

I wasn’t really all that surprised, however, remembering that back at January’s CES where the Pre was first unveiled, none of the invited journalists were allowed to hold the device. And perhaps even more bizarrely, at a London press event where I got my first brief hands-on with the Pre, we were told not to film or take any photos. This was nine months after the Pre had been announced and three months since the CDMA version had gone on sale in the US.

All of which did add to the mystery of Palm’s comeback smartphone, a device that, along with webOS, may well represent the beleaguered company’s second coming.

In other words, this seemingly paranoid press strategy was either that. Paranoid.

Or pure marketing GENIUS.

Either way, I was more than willing to jump through the necessary hoops. You see Palm and I have previous form. I grew up using the Palm Treo line of PalmOS smartphones (Treo 180, 600 and 650). And through nostalgia tinted glasses, I’ve openly declared that I’m rooting for the company’s renewed success. I also get the impression that I’m not alone in the wider tech press. Hell, the smartphone world needs a viable competitor on the UX front to keep Cupertino in check.

The handover was swift and painless. It was later explained that the reason for insisting on a face-to-face was so that I experienced something similar to customers who purchase a Pre in an O2 store, which is interesting in itself and mirrors the point of sale program that Palm and Sprint have designed for the US.

I setup a webOS profile, a registration process that undoubtedly enables Palm to own a large part of the customer relationship (a la Apple) and gives the user a place in the cloud to store their crucial data and settings, making life easier if they lose their Pre or upgrade to another webOS phone in the future (regardless of carrier). It’s a win-win proposition for both Palm and the customer, although where it leaves carrier O2 in the value chain, in the long term anyway, I’m not so sure. As phones get smarter, the pipes seemed destined to get dumber.

Next I was presented with a short interactive demo video that auto plays explaining crucial elements of the Pre’s UI, from basics like the multi-touch screen to the more subtle gesture area. All very nice, all very Palm. In fact the Pre’s setup and initial use felt so intuitive, the presence of an overlooking PR was a little awkward.

Finally, Greg suggested that I launch the contacts app and start entering in my Gmail and Facebook credentials so that Palm’s Synergy feature could start its work converging my various contacts into one unified and cloud-savvy address book. However, alert to the fact that the battery indicator was in the red – that’s how it was given to me – I declined and would get to that bit as soon as I was back home. Besides I didn’t want a dead battery otherwise I couldn’t continue playing with the Pre during my commute from Soho to north London (the Pre’s battery life is a potential sticking point based on most reviews).

And that was it. With a certain sense of satisfaction and excitement knowing that, finally, I have a Palm Pre, at least for the next ten days anyway, and after a brief conversation about the virtues of twitter (follow me @sohear) I bid farewell to the helpful PR and I was on my way…

Once back home, setting up Synergy was equally straight forward. After entering my Google credentials into the Pre, the phone’s email client sprang to life, as did calendar and contacts. In some ways the webOS-powered Pre is the Google phone I was always hoped Android would be. Google integration is more or less on a par with stock Android but has a far superior UI. The Pre’s calendar is one example, with multi-calendar support and a nifty accordion metaphor to utilise screen real estate when part of the day is empty.

Importing Facebook contacts, avatars included, also worked as expected, and merging any duplicate contacts between Google and Facebook, for the most part, happened automatically. Manually linking contacts that Synergy had missed was also trivial.

Anyway, you get the picture. I’m impressed so far.

Besides, I’ve already more than exceeded my self imposed word count for this debut MIR column and frankly I better get my skates on for a press event I’m attending tonight. Think gadgets and canapés, you know the deal. Talking of which, I’m really looking forward to goading all of my journo rivals with this shiny new Palm Pre in hand. Although perhaps not. Knowing my luck I’ll lose it.

Who’s paranoid now.

And just before I go, here is the device in all it’s glory:

- – - – -

Steve O’Hear is a tech journalist and consultant based in London. Steve writes the blog last100 and has written for numerous publications, including The Guardian, ZDNet, ReadWriteWeb and Macworld. He also wrote and directed the Silicon Valley documentary, In Search of the Valley. You can follow Steve on Twitter here.

Whilst neither party will comment on the report, sources close to both companies said an official announcement could happen as early as tomorrow (Tuesday).

Reports over the weekend in the UK Sunday newspapers claimed Vodafone and O2′s parent company Telefonica had already submitted bids of £3.5bn for Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile UK business unit.

A combination of O2 and T-Mobile would bring around a 42% market share in the UK, Vodafone and T-Mobile 40%, whilst a joint venture with Orange could grab 37% of the market.

They’ve had enough.

The result is that the o2 data network is, obviously, screwed.

What the hell is wrong with o2?

It’s supposed to be carrier-grade. Which means it goes down once in a blue moon and when they log a Priority 1 issue like this, teams of people are fired for screwing up.

It’s perhaps just as well that they’re apparently losing iPhone exclusivity on the 9th of October. By all means be exclusive, but make sure my sodding data connection stays up. All the time. You know, ‘five nines’? 99.999%? You know, ‘carrier grade’?

Have a read of this story:

Although there has been plentiful speculation about O2 losing its iPhone exclusivity over the last few weeks, sister site Mobile Entertainment has seen documentation that states it will end officially on October 9th.

O2 signed its original deal with Apple in late 2007, and is believed to have the rights to sell iPhone to 2012.

However, the exclusive arrangement lasts only for two years – although sources say that O2 may retain sole rights to the recently launched iPhone 3GS.

via O2 iPhone exclusivity to end October 9th | Casual games | News by Casualgaming.biz.

(and well spotted by @mobilegd)

Many of you may have heard this story before; its one of many legendary tales of great customer service from Nordstrom and best of all it’s true.

According to a chap called Efraim Turban, “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation.”

Like us all I have copious tales of woe and despair dealing with the corporate giants of today. I’d say the worst offenders used to be the banks,  but in today’s world of mobile everything, the network operators have definitely taken that crown. While complaining about OFCOM and whining about infrastructure costs, mobile operators continue to fleece consumers while delivering a deeply inconsistent customer service experience which can drive grown men of good demeanour to the edge of sanity. I’m a grown man.

I’ve had a mobile phone for over 15 years. I’ve been with o2 for a decade. In November 2008 I upgraded my Blackberry. As part of that deal I haggled a free USB Broadband Modem for my laptop, with the usual £15 monthly cost INCLUDED as part of my £45 tariff.

Now, I have enough material to write 20,000 words on the events of the past 9 months; but suffice to say 20+ calls, 10hrs+ on the phone, copious emails and tweets later, I’m still left without a USB Modem and o2 refusing to honour the agreed deal. An o2 Manager – having listened to the recorded call from November-has even confirmed the deal was agreed; but still nothing happened and I went around in circles again. In short, it leaves loyal customers like myself feeling that O2 don’t give a f***.

I cannot find the words to describe how fundamentally angry I am with o2. I have wasted an extraordinary amount of time. I spend £5,000 a year on my personal Blackberry and that’s before counting the 6 contracts of my staff.

In fact I was so angry I found myself typing “I hate o2″ into Google. As a general search it gave 56,000,000 results; being a nice chap I thought I’d do an explicit search instead. Sadly Orange and 3 escape this test, for obvious reasons. Lucky them.

It’s all rather haphazard of course; for starters, 9 out of 10 of the 767 people saying “I love o2″ were not talking about o2 the operator, but o2 Yoga, o2 Fitness and a plethora of other things which were definitely not telco.

I know many people who only use o2 because they wanted an iPhone; but they despise o2. That’s so wrong! How can a brand get it SO badly wrong?

o2 have done a great job of turning around their initial brand perception, using music venues & spending millions on “being cool”. This is all then wasted when the service doesn’t deliver straightforward satisfaction to a customer.

Brands must learn I simply want a most basic level of respect and politeness. Calls returned when promised, honour the deal you agreed to, a  little bit of trust might even be nice. I don’t care whether I’m a “VIP UK Select Gold” customer (as the nauseatingly precious voice tells me every time I call). It’s all smoke and mirrors.

If o2 focused back on delivering a basic level of good service to all customers, churn would lower, brand value would rise and shareholder coffers would fill.

As anyone in business knows, there are many tombs written on the subject of customer service; blogs, podcasts, qualifications, training camps,  methodologies and of course the inevitable slew of government supported “standards” with customer friendly titles such as “TICSS” and “ISO 10002:2004″ Did you know, that last one addresses “the quality management on handling of customer complaints”?

Fascinating.

Actually, IMHO (lets keep the acronym theme going) this is all a load of crap. I’m with Johan. Good customer service is really rather simple. Until very recently Nordstrom staff when joining were given only one thing: a card with just 75 words written on it, the core of which said “Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service.

Nordstrom Rules:

Rule #1: Use good judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules.”

As modern health & safety madness and litigation has got worse, that same card is now accompanied with an employee handbook, but this simple guidance and wise employee empowerment remains.

Frustratingly, many of the people I work with in the industry are from o2; and they are good people doing good things; but they’re not dealing with the day to day service. I only have a modest 1,000+ twitter followers and I probably meet 1000 mobile industry people a year; I’m no head of a Global FTSE 100 bluechip, but if they won’t listen to an angry mobile entrepreneur what hope does John Doe have?

It is truly incomprehensible how mobile operators can deliver such a widespread poor level of customer service. Corporate culture and brand values start at the top, and if any o2 shareholder is reading this, that is where you should look to solve this endemic problem.

I wonder if o2 is ISO 10002:2004 approved..? Actually I don’t care. I’m a customer. I don’t care. It makes no difference to me. Just serve me well. I’m your customer and I’m the reason company exists! Johan Nordström knew that.

At the end of my last post I said I’d write next time on the subject “It’s about the data, stupid.” Well, in terms of delivering valuable functionality to users that remains true, but in terms of your brand and business it’s all about the customer, always.

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Andrew Scott is a digital entrepreneur in London, CEO Rummble, Non-exec UnLtdWorld.com, Founding board m.Love & lover of all things mobile!

Follow Andrew on Twitter: andrewjscott.