Google subsidiary apologises after major website crash

The chief executive of Google’s Motorola hardware subsidiary, Dennis Woodside, has offered consumers a public apology after a Cyber Monday promotion caused an embarrassing website crash.

As a Cyber Monday promotion, the company offered US residents a customised Moto X smartphone for $US349 outright.

Unveiled in August, the Moto X is a smartphone that allows consumers in the US the ability to customise their smartphone through a website called MotoMaker, with the phones individually assembled at a factory in Fort Worth, Texas.

In a statement, Woodside blamed a lack of volume testing, a website bug impacting concurrent orders and strong consumer demand for the crash.

“First, we misjudged the overwhelming consumer demand for Moto X, which was far greater than we expected.

“Second, our pre-sale site testing was not sufficiently extensive. Testing failed to reveal weaknesses caused by large volumes of concurrent orders flowing through the MotoMaker customisation engine.”

Woodside says while the company has found a solution to the concurrent order issue, which is currently being implemented, the bug caused the website to become unstable.

“When we opened the promotion this morning, an extraordinary spike in concurrent orders caused our website to go down. We couldn’t fulfil orders.

“The site became unstable. While some orders were filled, many customers tried all day to place their orders, unsuccessfully. Customers were left frustrated.”

Woodside says the company will re-run the promotion on December 9 with double the available stock.