[Jon3G]

By Tim Richardson
Published Tuesday 5th July 2005 13:39 GMT
Orange yesterday pulled the plug on its Wildfire voice recognition service.

The cellco had planned to terminate Wildfire at the end of May but delayed closure, in response to a barrage of complaints. It had underestimated the strength of feeling from loyal Wildfire fans - in particular blind and visually impaired users who relied on Wildfire to make their calls.

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The cellco - owned by France Telecom - blamed declining numbers for its decision to ditch Wildfire.

Orange paid €148m ($142m) to acquire Wildfire Communications in April 2000.

The system drummed up an army of fans who relied on the voice activated system to take messages, place calls and store information.

Like a "real" PA, Wildfire also became familiar with punters' "personal requirements" the more they used it. ®

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/05/orange_wildfire/

[Jon3G]

Just used my Orange sim with wildfire activated. Its still working fine and so is my Dads.

Anyone else have wildfire and is it still working?

[Talkingabout3G]

I have wildfire too and it still works

:p

[Jon3G]

and I thought it was turned off :p

[simax]

It's off now though, isn't it? :mad:

[Jon3G]

no still working

[fat jez]

You have Wildfax by any chance? My sources tell me that users of Wildfax are being processed manually, which is why you still have it. My Wildfire is still there on my line 1, but gone from my line 2.

Cheers,
Jez

[Jon3G]

Didnt think you could have wildfire on line 2.

When wild first come out I was working for a telecom retailer and I could not get wildfire activated on line 2

[fat jez]

Strange. But I was a triallist, so that may have had something to do with it.

Cheers,
Jez

[Jon3G]

Still not turned off

[fat jez]

That's because they have to manually delete all the Wildfire accounts with Wildfax before they can give you a regular voicemail account. I heard there were about 2000 or so users still outstanding from my sources at Orange.

Cheers,
Jez