The fact that Orange has decided to use Apple for Film To Go indicates that it is progressively accepting Apple's closed approach and confirms the manufacturer's leading position in the distribution and sale of paid-for digital media. Unlike other members of the industry who tried to push customers away from Apple by launching a movie store of their own, Orange has gone directly to where its customers are which will help it optimise the performance of its campaign. iTunes had 68% of transactional movies in the UK in 2010.

For the promotional offer to work, it is very important that the content line-up is good enough. It's still early stages but, so far, Orange only seems to have a deal with Vivendi-owned UK film distributor Optimum Releasing. Optimum primarily distributes independent and foreign language titles and also has a large back catalogue of classic British films. Orange will have to expand the number of content deals for Film To Go if it wants its marketing campaign to succeed over time.

IHS Screen Digest estimates that Orange UK has over 15m mobile subscribers in the UK.  In Q2 2011, Everything Everywhere - the Orange/T-Mobile joint venture - had 738,000 home broadband subscribers all under the Orange brand. It is highly unlikely that the offer will be extended to T-Mobile customers at this stage.