IBM promised organisers the most technologically sophisticated Olympics in history and one of the biggest electronic marketplaces for tickets. But with a fiasco over the Games results service, some analysts believe the Olympic clock has begun ticking on the reputation of IBM, one of the biggest Olympic sponsors.
"If they can fix the problems in the short term, I don't think they will get egg on their face," said Frank Dzubeck, president of Communications Network Architects in Washington DC. "But if the problems persist through out the entire Olympics, then they will get egg on their, face, as will the city of Atlanta.
IBM, which is said to have spent up to $80 million on the Games, put together a sprawling results system called Info 96, which disseminates athletic results to an estimated 150,000 accredited individuals. The system's early failure and bizarre results (see panel) provoked howls of protests from the international media, which have already dubbed Atlanta the "cockup Games" because of this and massive transport problems.
An IBM spokesman defended the system, saying the biggest challenges were posed by a single world news agency feed. The bottom line is that the field of play has not been affected," he said, adding. "Customer confidence has not been shaken."
Kevan Gosper, a member of Sydney's organising committee for the next Olympics in 2000, said Australian officials were monitoring the problems closely.
"It may be that ACOG [the Atlanta organising committee] have called for too sophisticated a system. If so, and if IBM are able to provide a simpler system which met our requirements, there would be no problem."
An ACOG spokesman admitted last week that a dedicated information feed for a dozen news agencies was still "not performing up to our expectations". The IBM ticket sales site on the Olympic Committee's official Web page was also still not responding.