Yesterday, Christina, the kids and I went to Orange expo 2009. We were not very impressed. Granted, the décor was modern and the hostesses were nice looking but the products themselves were lacking. I felt the objective of this expo was to sell instead of to make people discover new ways to use technology… and become empowered in the process. When talking to the people on the stands there, I felt only a few knew about what they were talking about and this was frustrating. For instance, I asked someone from the iPhone stand whether it was possible to buy applications from the Apple App Store with one of his Orange iPhones and he couldn’t answer me satisfactorily… I also spent a few minutes talking to someone demonstrating an ebook reader but he knew his product only superficially and I felt he thought it was pathetically crap… and I personally didn’t! (I would love to get a Kindle 2 for instance.) It was surreal. I was more enthusiatic about his product than him.
Anya, my 6-year old daughter, summarised my feelings when she later said in the car: “I would rather have been to a real expo.”
For the booth girls. :P
I’ve been to carrots blog and now yours… i do not think im going to be at the Orange Expo now… :(
too bad.. the world is moving so fast… and yet these people at the head of the major organization of this country do things so slowly.. i think we will never catch up..
Actually, they said that if you apply for an entrance ticket online, you’ll receive one and you can bring in another person with you for free.
Never got the tickets.
Thanks for the info, I won’t waste my time to go there then.
Regarding the mobile services, I strongly advise you guys to move to MTML. I did. I don’t regret it as far as the “price” is concerned.
Regarding quality of coverage, it’s comparable to Emtel whereby you won’t have it covered everywhere, but it’s good! I know for Orange even down into the Gorge you’ll be covered :)
They just launched the Rs1 call to every network, irrespective of fix or mobile and SMS at 25c. You can wait till they revert to GSM so that you can continue using your actual phone.
Time for change. Stop feeding that company big money for the same services you can have for much less somewhere else.
There were people around me and me also asking questions about the product, like The expected price and approximate launching date in Mauritius. But apart from which format the reader stores and a simple flipping of pages of a sample international newspaper, nothing great the demo was.
I would also love to obtain an eBook Reader storing eBooks not infringing copyrights.
I went to the expo specially to see the eReader. I had of course gone to the Orange France site and learned that they had are running a test since June/July 2008 following a launch in the salon du livre. Like you Avinash I felt that the guy doing the demo knew nothing about the concept of eReader all he could say was that you could read newspapers on it. While doing his demonstration one of MT’s manager came around and he seemed to discover the product for the first time. It was I who started to tell them about Amazon Kindle which they seemed to hear for the first time and when I mentioned that some of the major newspapers in the US are giving away Kindles with subscriptions to save on paper I could see exclamation marks over their heads just like in comic strips. My niece who was with me made a comment like “You should be doing the presentation of the product”. The price of the iLiad reader is currently around 400 Euros so roughly around Rs 18000 which is still expensive but if I can read my PDF documents and jot down my notes I’m in nirvana :-)
hi Avinash.
Hope you aur fine.
Do you have an opinion about when the new Iphone 3Gs will be available here in Mauritius? It took 4 Months for the last one.
Please let me know.
Thanks & regards.
For the iphone you can’t buy apps damm our country is not listed in apps store :(
Question for you all:
Assuming you did not receive an invitation ticket, were you required to pay an entrance fee at the door to be allowed access to the Expo?
@Ajay I had an invitation for two adults but my two kids did not have to pay :-)
@Dhiraj Are you 100% sure we, Mauritians, cannot buy anything from the Apple Store? If that is true, then Orange should receive a proper kick where it hurts because they are essentially selling a crippled system.
@Fabien No idea :-)
Me too, I received the invitation card in my monthly phone bill. I had misplaced mine so I took the one from my brother’s bill.
yep
been trying for 1 month to buy an apps but could cause country issue
could not i mean
“yep
been trying for 1 month to buy an apps but could not cause country issue”
need new eyes
You must have an itune account in order to purchase any application (whether free or paid). App store is not available in Mauritius. You must register in any App Store available in United States & choose an “Apple US retail store address”.
Free applications are possible to download where more than 100 free applications for each categories are accessible.
By the way, the next generation of iphone (iphone 3Gs)has just released, which is believe to have more processing, memory , battery life, video recording & many more new features. And the OS 3.0 is expected to be released soon.
Regards,
Sooraj,
(gr8 fan of iphone)
When I heard about it I just said “Thats another sales booster forum”. And you are confirming it for me. Good I didn’t went there then.
Hi!
When it comes to selling things, companies chose selling people. And selling people are non-technical and sufficiently wise at fooling the masses. They don’t know anything more.
Imagine that manual from the call-centre:
Me: Hi! I can’t connect to the Internet.
Call-girl (after checking in the manual): Then remove your cable connecting your computer to the wall socket.
@Sooraj
seem like an apple support lol
i know that but i don’t understand why our account must be bound to our
country
i can use my paypal account to buy things online but not on itune cause i have a US account and my paypal account is bound to my country
An App Store is expected to be available in Mauritius soon. They are recruiting staffs & iphone developers. Hope it is available this year itself. & no need to have a US account.
Btw, am just a fan of iphone.. no apple support ;-)
What do you mean? Who is “they”?
@sooraj
cool
by the way apple support is great company to another fruit company i know lol
where can i apply?
Maybe am mistaken and i think its not a real App Store. Its just a company that is recruiting iphone developers & other mobile platform developers also.
I will not name any company name. Here’s the link:
http://myjob.mu/companies_view.php?id=445
( dealine to apply: 2day ;-) )
Yeah. Looks like a company willing to employ people to develop iPhone and Android applications. Nothing to do with Apple as such (I think.)
BTW I registered for App Store with a South african address but with my real visa account. What to do when you cannot dload even free apps? I intend to buy the new iphone 3Gs as soon it arrives here. Some said it will be in August. New OS 3.0 upgrade will be available today.
hi,
read your post and could not resist writing here… just wanted share a funny experience I had at the flacq orange shop. you remeber the ‘big tam tam’ they did on the launch of iPhone 3g in mauritius – in fact i went to that shop those days i dont remember exactly which day it was, anyways, just to have a look and feel of it.. so I entered the shop and suprisingly someone asked me if i need help (it dont remember when was then last time someone from that shop did that! nicely surprised… realy). So I asked the gentleman if he could tell me about iPhone and its package, although I had already read about it i think they had it all in their website or flyers… can you imagine that the guy told me he dont know about the product!! Never heard about Iphone!!! and thats not all, there was a BIG poster just behind him with all the details!!! And whats more amazing is that.. this is not a joke at all!
i didnt go to the ‘Orange Expo’. :)