Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Applied Materials No-Politics Thread (AMAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sarmad Y. Hermiz who wrote (21087)	11/28/2006 1:03:14 PM
From: etchmeister	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25522

Hi Sarmad - what does Vista mean to server hardware? Can one expect some kind of upgrade cycle for servers as well? TIA Online Shopping Woes Rachel Rosmarin, 11.28.06, 6:00 AM ET Popular Tech Stories The Forbes Fictional 15 Nintendo's Wii Is A Revolution Borat Is Rich ... NOT! Akamai Loads Up On Software James Bond: Licensed To Sell By This Author Rachel Rosmarin • Small Screens, Smaller Audiences • MySpace Exec Out At Fox • Sony Makes Its Bet More Headlines Popular Videos Notes On The News: Latvia: The Future Of Iraq? Heavy Shopping, Light Trading Dolphins Charge Ahead Playing Defense Fast And Furious Most Popular Stories Fastest American Cars 2006 The Hidden Cost Of Obesity Forbes Agenda: Week of Nov. 26-Dec. 2 A Hot Time On Cyber Monday A Fictional Feast Why can't major online retailers seem to get it right? They prepared for the holiday shopping season months in advance by streamlining payment systems and upgrading and increasing servers based on market research forecasts. Web traffic to retail sites grew 12% on Nov. 24--“Black Friday”--over last year, according to Nielsen NetRatings. Yet Costco.com, WalMart.com, Amazon.com (nasdaq: AMZN - news - people ), Macys.com and Footlocker.com were all either inaccessible to consumers or operating slowly at some point from Nov. 17 to Nov. 24. “People are going to find other places to shop if the site isn’t functioning,” admits Costco (nasdaq: COST - news - people ) Senior Vice President of E-commerce and Publishing Ginnie Roeglin. Costco’s site slowed to a crawl Nov. 17 after thousands of people tried to purchase Sony's (nyse: SNE - news - people ) PlayStation 3. “We were not pleased with the site’s performance that day,” she added. Costco’s information technology unit conducted tests of increased traffic loads and worked with Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ) and other companies to ensure that their servers could handle the increases, says Roeglin. But the company chose not to add new servers ahead of the PlayStation sale. Even Amazon.com, which now sells server capacity in the form of its Elastic Compute Cloud product, was not immune to holiday-related downtime. Amazon.com went under for more than ten minutes on Nov. 23 at 2 p.m. Eastern time, after the company had sold 1,000 of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 gaming units for less than half price. Amazon did not return calls for comment. Retailers need a strategy for dealing with traffic associated with “doorbuster offers,” says JupiterKagan analyst Patti Freeman Evans. She suggests virtual waiting rooms. That way, customers can find out their odds of completing a limited purchase and yet be tempted by other offers. Another option for Amazon would be to only offer deals of the “while supplies last” variety to certain types of qualifying customers, such as those who’ve preregistered or earned points by shopping at the site, rather than the general public. WalMart.com was inaccessible for several hours on Nov. 24. Visitors saw a message indicating that the company was in the process of upgrading its site. Patrick Morrissey, senior vice president of marketing at Savvion, a business process management company, says Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people ) should have posted driving directions to a nearby store. “They could’ve driven store traffic and turned a negative into a positive, says Morrissey. The company did not return calls seeking comment.