The Weekly Round-Up: 25.02.05

"Pained and intense, man,
They were inquiring.
They were curious Orange..."

So sang The Fall in Overture From "I Am Curious Orange" - a song about UK mobile phone operator Orange...

... OK, so it was written long before Orange came along but of late they certainly have been curious, Orange.

This week the company announced it has launched a lawsuit against Stelios Haji-Ioannou's Easy empire over its proposed use of its own distinctive orange branding on its forthcoming mobile phone venture.

Easy-branded businesses have been resplendent in orange for the best part of 10 years and nobody would think to question the fact that of course the latest addition to the Easy stable would also be orange... apart, it would seem, from Orange.

A statement from the now-French-owned mobile firm said: "After six months of negotiations with EasyMobile, we have been unable to secure a commitment from them not to infringe our rights regarding the use of the colour orange."

(Note the fact the statement from Orange uses the wrong branding for easyMobile, favouring instead EasyMobile. A small point – after all, what's in a capital 'E' - but one which the Round-Up would like to believe was deliberately childish.)

The statement continued:

“Our brand and the rights associated with it are extremely important to us.

"In the absence of any firm commitment from Easy, we have been left with no choice but to start an action for trademark infringement and 'passing off'."

But let's go back to the phrase "Our rights regarding the use of the colour orange".

And there was the Round-Up thinking the colour orange existed long before the mobile phone company came along.

Perhaps William of Orange is due some back-pay (despite the fact he died in 1702). Or perhaps despite using the word in his title he never worked for the mobile phone operator. If so, perhaps he too should be sued for 'passing off'. After all, what if Charles II had signed up for a business tariff with him when really he meant to sign up with Orange?

Or perhaps Orange should engage some common sense and realise that Easy is as entitled to use its own branding as Orange is and neither has the divine right to lay claim to a colour – something which has been tested before the courts in the past.

And they aren't even fighting over the same orange.

For the record, this nasty litigation rests on the fact Orange uses PANTONE 151 for its orange while easyMobile uses PANTONE 021... so what's all the fuss about?

But it may also be worth noting that Stelios is to some degree getting a bit of a comeuppance here having previously threatened similar actions against a number of companies using the word 'easy' in their brand of company name, such as easyART (wonderful service, by the way) who fought their corner and held onto their name.

Also, as an interesting aside here, an attempt by the Round-Up to access easymobile.co.uk using a Vodafone 3G Connect Card actually got blocked by Vodafone, bringing up the following message:

Content Control
RESTRICTED ACCESS
You are not able to access this service because Vodafone Content Control is in place.

Surely not an indication of more in-fighting in the mobile phone industry?

Not at all. On further investigation it turns out easymobile.co.uk isn't owned by Stelios and co but rather by another company altogether... who might be expecting a call from the litigious Mr Haji-Ioannou any time soon.

(The Round-Up took Vodafone's word for it that the content therein wasn't fit for such innocent eyes as these – so on your own head be it if you go looking.)

Orange also made it into the news elsewhere this week – well, persistently pumped out the same press release until we were beaten into submission - with the story of a UK-based astro-physicist type using his 3G mobile data card to control a radio-telescope in Hawaii and watch the stars.

Well done him.

David Bowdley, educational programmes manager for the Faulkes Telescope Project, said: “The first time I used the card for a session was when I was driving with a friend on the M60 just outside of Manchester. Observing asteroids whilst travelling at 70 mph is quite an experience!"

However, a note of caution. While David Bowdley may be impressing his mates (work with it...) with the ability to stargaze, while controlling a telescope on the other side of the world, from a moving object on the M60, using the Orange 3G data card; the Round-Up couldn't actually sit, stationary in one particular London postcode, and send a solitary email to another part of the capital using one.

Still, as long as they have covered-off the all-important radio-telescope operating Mancunians they've got the key demographic covered.

(While trialling the unit the Round-Up would have to leave the house and walk half a mile to a coffee shop where it was possible to get a signal. Ironically, however, having done so the coffee shop actually offered far faster, free, all-you-can-eat Wi-Fi anyway, rendering the fact a location had been found where the card actually worked something of a moot point.)

It seems the wilds of south-west London are just too way out.

(For the record – which, given Orange has now revealed its litigious colours, no pun intended, might be wise – the card did work in many other London areas but as far as the Round-Up was concerned that 'free trial' cost the value of about 30 cappuccinos... and around 30 miles worth of shoe leather.)

All this talk of remote access and wireless working belies the fact the Round-Up has been on its travels of late...

Since when did everybody in airports and on flights work in IT? Whatever happened to holidaymakers – or even the occasional light-relief football hooligan, off to a European fixture, or hens and stags off to Faliraki?

Most recently the Round-Up was sat in Cattle Class on a flight, doing some justice to a rather bland Bloody Mary mixed by the fair hands of a BA steward (which is mentioned not so much as a tribute to the gonzo journalism of the late great Hunter S Thompson but more so the Round-Up could mention happening to catch the steward checking his own mixology in their little galley area when he thought nobody was looking... Though the Round-Up is sure his was a Virgin Mary... not that BA would give Branson the satisfaction of knowing they called it that...)

Next door but one empty seat, (in seat 13D if you really care,) was a guy who wears a tie to fly economy... nice touch.

He was later met at the gate by a red-faced BA staffer who apologised to him for his having to rub shoulders with the likes of the Round-Up. Apparently his company spends $7m each year with BA and it was an administrative oversight which saw him put in the back half of the plane... oh dear.

The Round-Up knew when he put that tie on he wasn't expecting to be in economy.

But prior to eavesdropping on his chat at the airport ($7m – that's a lot of air miles), the Round-Up was hard pressed NOT to also indulge in some shoulder-surfing.

For most of the flight 'tie guy' was working on the most complicated PowerPoint presentation since Bill Gates said 'Let's see what this thing can do...'

His task in life, as the Round-Up unashamedly read from an oblique angle, is to discuss 'Cisco's Value Proposition'. He also has a slide dedicated to how Cisco sales teams can learn to 'have more fun'.

(The Round-Up's suggestion, for what it's worth, is don't put it on a PowerPoint slide. Slides may have been fun in the playground and even at the waterpark... but on a laptop and in a presentation slides don't really have a high chortle rating.)

Sat in the departure lounge, two hours before that episode, a rather loud sales-type on his mobile phone was talking up a reseller deal with Glaxo (who "…would be stupid not to go for it"... apparently).

There are times in a person's life when they want to turn around and say "I'm an IT journalist" but they are few and far between – and rarely in the company of attractive women (unless her Dad works in IT) or people who look like they could break you in two for being a 'bloody geek or something'...

...or people who might be about to give you your next lead... so keep an ear to the ground on Glaxo.

Then the person at the next table in the departure lounge bar (which was probably named something like 'The You'd-never-normally-drink-here-but-your-plane's-delayed-and-let's-face-it-you've-got-no-choice Arms') was talking about "those guys we brought in from Sun" - the tech giant not the newspaper or glowing sphere of hot gas.

On the other side of the Round-Up in the self-same bar, between the fruit machines and the perfume stand, there were three guys who think "you might as well give them the keys to the safe as buy Microsoft licences".

Then there were a group of contractors flying out to Sweden to find out, as one noisily explained on the phone, "just how badly the Swedes have messed-up this whole bloody system..."

Speaking (sort of) of Swedes, the long-suffering, perma-tanned sometime-girlfriend of sometime-popular England football manager Sven Goran Eriksson, Nancy Dell'Olio (OK, she's Italian but he's Swedish, as was his mistress) is dabbling in the online world with a charity venture (...so well done her).

The venture is called MidasPlayer.com and it is a skill game hosted by Dell'Olio to raise money for the Red Cross.

Nancy plays host for a series of games such as 'Quiz Queen' (it's a quiz... yeah, you knew) where players stump up the princely sum of 35p to play – half of which goes to the Red Cross.

Players compete against one another in a battle of trivia and the Round-Up will stake the first 35p wager on the fact the first question isn't:

"Who is the common link between FA secretary Faria Alam and former TV:AM weathergirl Ulrika Johnson?"

A press release for the worthy venture stated: "This is Nancy Dell’Olio’s first foray into the internet and one which she is extremely excited about."

Dell'Olio then chipped in with: “For me, it is like being a host on a television quiz show with an international audience of millions where everyone can have a go."

Welcome, Nancy, to Henry Kelly's world, circa Going for Gold.

“This game is fun," she added. "Best of all, half the proceeds go towards the British Red Cross.”

No, Nancy, "best of all" ALL proceeds would go to the British Red Cross' – but the Round-Up doesn't question for a minute that half of something is better than nothing. So well done Nancy.

And finally, perhaps Nancy's fella Sven should take a leaf out of Marks & Spencers' book. The retailer this week launched a scheme to give it greater control of its underwear.

The high street giant is kicking up a storm in a D-cup with the use of RFID technology – 'tagging chips' to your mates down the pub this evening – to keep track of just where all those bras and pants get to in the supply chain and the store.

Fears of a Big Brother culture will certainly follow – as they do with all RFID stories – but it's unlikely anybody is ever going to be monitoring the whereabouts of 'red size 8 thong, serial number 25678 from batch MS812' in the wider world... so if that's you (and the Round-Up is sure several readers are even now checking their undies for radio tags) don't worry.

The Round-Up just hopes that if that is you, you are at least a woman.