Mobile Industry Review - Latest Comments in o2, Carphone and the Flexible Workflow PhD researcher

Re: o2, Carphone and the Flexible Workflow PhD researcher

rich_1234 — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 04:35:15 -0000

From a techincal point of view the whole problem with o2 iphone launch appears to be about the number of concurrent sessions any of their systems can take. The website crashed because it couldn't handle the number of sessions. The upgrade processes failed because it had more points for the session to disappear than the new customers (extra step for the sms codes on the upgrade). The in-shop activation processs stopped working because of the demand.

When the o2 shops opened on the high street they had queues outside, it was controlled there wasn't a bundle of people stuck in the doorway. Use the same idea for the website, if the demand was kept lower none of the sessions fail, everyone who starts the process can finish or timeout within a short period. To keep it first come first served anyone who visits the website during a period of high demand would be allowed to create an account or login if they have an existing account but not go any further. Then use a process like ticketmasters website to queue everyone.

The shop activation problem is an odd one, the activation system has a known amount of possible concurrent users (no of shops * no of activation terminals), on the launch day there was only going to be that number of users. Then the only backup system they use is paper, its not suprising that it takes 5 days to enter all the data and activate everyone. A failover system that just gathers data and doesn't process could have been in place.

Re: o2, Carphone and the Flexible Workflow PhD researcher

whatleydude — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:01:47 -0000

Excellent point on re: Step 2.

I feel a blog post coming on myself...

Re: o2, Carphone and the Flexible Workflow PhD researcher

bensmith — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:17:11 -0000

Excellent write-up. Welcome to the Ben-zone.

Re: o2, Carphone and the Flexible Workflow PhD researcher

juliancooling — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:42:08 -0000

I agree entirely. However, do they think that they have a problem that even needs to be solved?

Reading all the chats and websites etc, it is constantly pointed out that the iPhone is a small seller in a big market. While all of this is going on, O2 is still competently running a really, really big engineering and customer service operation. It is fun to think that powmobs, because they are high value customers (min £50pm), should figure largely in the thoughts of their operations planners. However, if they really took high value, _diverse usage_ groups that seriously, a rich mobile experience would have been supported years' ago. They haven't and they are showing every sign that they still won't be. Roger's plans show they have no intention of really supporting a rich diverse mobile experience for the mass market regardless of their add-on value as customers.

I get really anoyed that Nokia et al provide such a poor experience to use their amazingly powerful tools (and here am I, a DNS refusnik still largely using IP numbers rather than hostnames on largish networks). We say Apple will show 'em how. However, it is becoming bleeding obvious that not all of the participants are that aware of the revolution...

The problem is not with Nokia. As Ewan has pointed out a million times, the problem is The Industry. It is so, so focused on mainframe style controlled solution provisioning. And here we are all from the PC/Workstation world. The iPhone may be the first time that normobs are getting the shock of their lives realising that The Industry is still in the 1960s world of centralised provisioning and closed door paternal decision making.

I look at American sit-coms from the 60s (I Dream of Jeanie etc) and see nostalgia. 02 and The Industry sees it as a idealistic representation of life.