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Orange unveils its 'Open Office'

The mobile giant potentially confuses users by unveiling a new suite of business services dubbed 'Open Office.'

By Stuart Turton, 4 Sep 2007 at 19:16

Orange has bundled together some of its business services to help mobile employees work more flexibly, branding the new offering under the potentially confusing name of Open Office.

Orange says it is targeting the portfolio of services at UK business users.

"Our research indicates that increasing levels of home and flexible working will be one of the defining business trends of this decade," said Neil Laidler, acting vice president of Orange Business Services UK. "Rather than daily commutes to a fixed place of work, employees will increasing expect to work productively from a variety of locations, whether at home or on the road. The winners will be those companies that act now to support this trend...This 'pick and mix' nature of this innovative package will allow forward-thinking companies of all sizes to reap the benefits of flexible working in the short term."

There may be benefits on offer, but the name choice may just be paving the way for a few scratched heads as customers confuse Open Office with OpenOffice.org, the internationally renowned open-source suite.

Intriguingly, OpenOffice.org chose not to use the name "Open Office" after discovering it was the registered trademark of a company in the Netherlands.

Orange says it's confident the use of the name will not cause confusion. "The term Open Office is being used by Orange Business Services to describe the increasing challenge facing organisations as they offer flexible ways of working to employees whilst balancing the need to ensure efficiency and security," it claims.

"Open Office is not a trademark name and has been chosen to reflect the challenges organisations face when moving towards a more flexible way of working."