Tom Alexander, the chap who co-founded Virgin Mobile along with Sir Richard Branson and went on to become a key figure in the development of Virgin Media, has taken over as head of Orange’s UK mobile and broadband operations. Orange hope that Mr Alexander, with his considerable “experience [in] leading some of the biggest brands in the industry” will help see the firm return to the glory days of Hans Snook, who lead the network operator into a period of prosperity.
Orange currently enjoys a comfortable third position in the mobile phones market in terms of subscription numbers, and a slightly-less comfortable fifth position in the ISP league table. Orange’s launch of its digital TV service has stalled, something that Mr Alexander will want to get back on track if he wants to improve the lot of his new charge.
Mobile and broadband rivals O2 are keen on getting an IPTV platform up and running, hoping to replicate the success of their Czech venture, Tiscali are ambitiously aiming to add 200,000 broadband plus digital TV customers in the next few years, and customers are slowly but surely warming to BT Vision. Of course, Sky’s See Speak Surf package has been phenomenally successful throughout 2007, and the arrival of Virgin Media’s Quadplay offering profoundly altered the ISP landscape.
Tom Alexander’s move mirrors the departure from Virgin Media of Steve Burch earlier in the year; Neil Berkett has taken over the reins, and has placed broadband services at the top of the list of Virgin’s priorities.
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Ian W said on 07 Jan 2008 at 2:16 pm #
I hope that this Alexander bloke sorts out Orange’s customer service department.