Most people who follow the telecommunications industry understand how disruptive over-the-top (OTT) services can be for carriers—whether Skype, WhatsApp, Netflix or the many other services available today and emerging tomorrow.
Giles Corbett, a seasoned professional in the mobile sector, was asked by the head of Orange Vallée—a forward-looking skunkworks team inside the operator—to advise, innovate, and implement a strategy to counter the OTT threat.
On their first project, VoiceFeed, Corbett recalls: “The goal was to show we could take something so tightly integrated with the network as voicemail and say, ‘This is broken and we’re going to reinvent it.’ That’s exactly what we did.”
“We built a voicemail service that could be operated on any network in the world—with or without the carrier’s approval,” he continues. “We even launched in the US, where Orange had no presence. It was a practical demonstration to the executive committee of what the OTT world was capable of.”
Corbett’s work was instrumental in helping Orange see why the network must adapt or risk being overtaken by consumer-built OTT apps that leverage core provider services.
From the user’s point of view, Corbett explains: “VoiceFeed represented a complete reinvention of voicemail. It started with a simple insight: the person who calls me most is my wife, yet the message she hears is generic.”
“Why can’t my wife get a personalized greeting? Why can’t she receive a message that tells her how much I love her, why I can’t answer right now, and how much I’m looking forward to seeing her?”
Giles and his team solved what now seems obvious in an innovative way. Many users see voicemail as an annoying necessity; with modernization and personalization, it can become more useful and less frustrating.
Beyond manual recordings, VoiceFeed introduced groups and “voice tags,” which allow the system to pull a first name from your address book and tailor the greeting—so it could say, for example, “Hi Sarah, I’ll be available for an interview after Wednesday.”
Although VoiceFeed shared similarities with Apple’s Visual Voicemail on iOS (available on some supported operators), I asked Corbett whether operating systems like Android and Windows Phone could bake similar features in and pose a threat to OTT developers.
Corbett replied: “Of all the UK operators, only O2 supported Visual Voicemail. We had more VoiceFeed users from O2 than any other network. Those users had discovered Visual Voicemail, understood it, and wanted more.”
On engaging with Apple, he said: “We were in Cupertino not long ago and were told, ‘Don’t show this to the product guys—you’ll embarrass them,’ because they hadn’t yet embraced this approach.”
Reflecting on the development process, Corbett notes: “When you’re focused on something, you can amaze people. Often I’d think, ‘But Google, Facebook or Apple could do this,’ and I’d consider doing nothing. Instead I said, bring it on.”
Corbett’s background in mobile is extensive—CEO of game developer In-Fusio, implementing the world’s first GSM WAP portal with Vivendi, and advising BBC Mobile. I asked him about the advantage of launching a service in partnership with an operator.
“If we launched this purely as an OTT service like WhatsApp, there would be no realistic way to bill users $5/month,” he explains. “By combining telco marketing muscle with an OTT approach and fast innovation, we can make monetization viable.”
Many question whether operators can truly innovate, often because carriers avoid risks that might harm their brand. Corbett’s latest project, Libon, was developed within Orange Vallée but operated independently under the name “Life is better on.”
When I asked why Orange kept the project so secretive and whether that was beneficial, Corbett replied: “This kind of innovation was something the rest of the organisation couldn’t approach. It wasn’t disruptive in a superficial sense; it risked undermining the existing business model.”
“Branding was a key consideration,” he adds. “Why call it ‘Libon’ rather than ‘Orange Communicator’? First, Libon was unproven—if it failed, it wouldn’t damage the Orange brand. Second, we needed to move quickly. We ship a new version of Libon roughly every three weeks. If it had been called ‘Orange Communicator,’ every product manager would have insisted on reviewing each release, and that would have killed our speed.”
Corbett and his team demonstrated to Orange the importance of treating OTT services seriously. I wanted to know whether he believed OTT strategy is now integral to the operator’s plans.
“I think Orange now understands the seriousness of the OTT threat,” he says. “You could argue they might have reached that conclusion without Libon, but by building and launching it we helped them grasp the nature of the threat earlier, which helped protect their user base.”
When I pressed him on whether Orange is well positioned compared with rivals to be an innovative, adaptive operator, Corbett was measured: “I’m doing my utmost to make sure they are.”
His enthusiasm for Libon’s future was contagious, even though he wouldn’t reveal details. “The exciting part is that Libon will let people communicate and chat with any of their contacts, wherever they are and whatever service they use. It’s elegant,” he said.
The team planned to release a beta version in the coming weeks, so interested users should watch for that announcement.
What do you think about the future of carrier-driven OTT services such as Libon?