Lunch with Orange and Abaxia

Rating: gimme gimme gimme content on my idle screen….

By Bena Roberts

Right now I am up to my eyeballs in the Idle Screen as I complete part three of my analysis of the Idle Screen for The Mobile Search Analyst. Therefore, it was interesting when the CEO of Abaxia (who forgot to introduce himself) Cedric Mangaud stood up and said Informa had said it was the market leader in a recently white paper written on the subject.

I agree that Abaxia has worked with Orange for nearly five years and the homescreen is an impressive service but I do have to contest its leadership in the idle screen space… I spoke briefly to a lady from Abaxia on this but she basically said that if Informa said it then it must be true! (We have been told). But anyway, back to the point.

Cedric spoke about its new Idle Screen services for Orange dubbed 2.5. Over the next few weeks new services such as instant push alerts on to the idle screen will be launch as mobile content search service for the idle screen is also being announced and billing information within an icon on the idle screen too.
As I am currently testing an Orange Signature Samsung i600 device, I have to say that the simplicity of the idle screen service is a given. But I was eager to see the Abaxia designed content search. I had a live demo from Orange’s Roman Sabo Head of Global Product Marketing, Device applications and he was also very chuffed with the end result.

Basically by typing in any number on to the idle screen a search box appears for finding services on the device. But it doesn’t stop there. Under the box are four icons. The icons can be easily and quickly navigated to narrow or expand the search. For example one of the searches is for content, the other for contacts the other for the open Internet (white label, Google or Yahoo! or most probably MSN) and the last box is for a general search.
Impressive? Definitely. After my poor experience with the Nokia mobile content search and my even worse experience with Mobease Find It services – I was very cautious. This was something completely different and similar to Qix and Tegic Discovery but edgier. The small icon interface simply blew me away.
I want one.
Matthias Hilpert Vice President, Device Strategy & Product Marketing at Orange who I haven’t seen for about a year was also very excited about the idle screen, orange download content and consistency in the user experience. I have his talk on podcast and as soon as I edit the noise in the background will publish it.
So I went to an Idle Screen presentation, enjoyed it but it’s the search service that has glued itself to my brain.

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