iPhone
Is it wrong to want an iPhone 3G? Here in the UK they're apparently in very short supply, a problem compounded by O2 (the UK iPhone carrier).
I received a text message from O2 at 7:30am on Monday inviting me to order my iPhone 3G online (at 8am). Already being an iPhone user I assumed the early sign up was exclusively for existing customers... WRONG, they actually invited everyone to go online and order, new and existing customers alike.
Consequently the website that handles upgrades crashed, personally I couldn't believe the whole situation had been handled so badly, a few points:
1. 02 had a "sign up for interest" form on their site, they therefore knew how many people were likely to hit the site.
2. The site was built in such a way that it would never have coped with a high volume of users (there was no session management and lots of flashy graphics).
3. The fail over page (designed to show if the main site was overwhelmed) in fact resulted in an error when the form on it was submitted.
Coming from a web development background I find it hard to believe that O2 went to market with such a poorly designed system. Granted the site may well have been developed and deployed in a rush (most web development projects are, but that's a different rant), however, if you are aware of shortcomings (which any kind of load testing would have revealed) why then send a text message and email to all potential users telling them to visit the site. A situation made worst by the "first come first served" propaganda, ensuring panic amongst the masses.
I hope lessons were learnt, however, I doubt they were, if only my clients had such low standards, my job would be easy!
