Windows Phone Thoughts: That's Integration?

"Microsoft and Orange will link their instant messaging systems later this year, allowing up to 375 million people to chat with each other using their PC or mobile phone, the companies said Wednesday. In reality, take-up will be much more limited...Behind those numbers, though, the immediate potential of the link-up is more modest. Just 700,000 of Orange's customers will have handsets compatible with the service when it launches in December, said Didier Lombard, chief executive officer of Orange's parent company, France Télécom. It will be several years before all customers have replaced their handsets with compatible models. Worse, before Orange's Internet access customers can contact Windows Live Messenger subscribers from their PCs, they will have to download a new version of Orange Messenger, incompatible with the existing one. Once a user has moved to the new Orange Messenger, they will be unable to contact friends still using the old system. Orange is still considering what migration options to offer users, a company spokeswoman said. "

If this is integration, then I don't think I'll be giving up my multi-platform IM clients anytime soon! This integration sounds suspiciously more like an "encouraged" upgrade (In this case, if one person upgrades all their friends need to upgade if they still want to contact that person!). The question that bugs me is - Why? Why can't they truly build gateway software and setup gateway servers that would allow true integration. Sure it would be expensive, but at least it would be user friendly! Any Orange users out there (at all) excited about this?