Are Microsoft about to start charging for Windows Live Mobile?

[El Mariachi]

Originally Posted by windows

Evidently MS have stated:

Microsoft confirms that these 30-day trial messages were pushed out, but it claims that this wasn't supposed to happen on Windows Mobile devices. The messages were only intended for the Symbian-based Nokia S60 smartphone.

"This week we rolled out a direct-to-consumer billing service for the Windows Live client on Nokia S60 in the UK and Sweden," reads a statement from Matt Champagne, director of Windows Live mobile services. "Although we are considering doing the same at a future time for Windows Mobile, this has not been implemented – however, something happened and many of you saw a trial message on Windows Mobile devices. Windows Mobile customers shouldn’t have received any notifications of a 30-day trial and we are working as quickly as possible to correct this."

"As you may know, we offer Messenger services through mobile operators on lots of handsets, not just Windows Mobile. Traditionally, customers have been billed by their mobile operators for many of these services, either directly or through their data package."

That's a relief, although they do mention it may be implemented in the future! It's quite a shame because I use WLM a lot on my device, but there are so many other applications for IM which I haven't looked through yet, so all is not lost!

[irblinx]

Well if and when they do start charging that will pretty much be the death knell for the service, there are far too many other options available to stick with a subscription service.

[fowljr]

I am agreement with that Ian.... although it is a familiar model...

[dmr54]

I guess only time will tell as to whether they decide to charge or not propbably based on how much revenue they get in from the Symbian starting point.

[windows]

Well if they do start charging I'll not be using it myself.......

[SpeedDemon]

Originally Posted by windows

Well if they do start charging I'll not be using it myself.......

I think that a lot more users feel exactly the same way. I for one do.

[fowljr]

It could provide quite a shock to MS I think....

[dmr54]

Well only time will tell now.

[windows]

To be honest I can see MS fixing the issue as I can see the though going that it is alright to charge competing OS'es like Symbian but to charge users of their own OS just shoots oneself in the foot!

[dmr54]

Tend to agree there mate