You already know that technology moves fast. Today's hero is tomorrow's goat. Sometimes companies promise more than they can deliver. Sometimes companies *think* they understand your business & can provide a solution, but upon deeper scrutiny, find out they're not as well prepared, robust, or as enterprise-wide as initially advertised.
Ok, I'll be the first to concede Market America has a challenging and complex technological environment. Who's kidding who, right? We've got millions of SKUs, thousands of products, thousands of partners and millions of shoppers and hundreds of features. It ain't easy to support and deliver that.
But in working out the kinks on our shopping Portal, we found that not all of our solutions providers could keep up with us. (or you!) Regrettably, we found that it was time to renew our search for a partner who could deliver on their promises.
Well, we found one.
And perhaps you might have heard of them?
Just a little ol' startup tech firm out of Washington state called "Microsoft."
And because we unfortunately have had to learn the hard way, this time there will be no guesswork - we've been working with Microsoft FAST (their search subsidiary) for months to ensure that they can accommodate the millions of our products. We did this very quietly, because if our needs couldn't be met, we didn't want to make a big splash.
But the good news is, it works. We're ready. Please welcome our newest Portal search technology provider, Microsoft FAST!
Marc welcomes Bjørn Olstad, Ph.D. from Microsoft.
Dr. Olstad's bio in the background:
5 comments:
MA always makes it happen. Sometimes it just takes a little longer than planned. And as JR often say's, some of us are a little slow at getting it too.
Jimi LaBonte Boynton Beach FL.
I had no doubt that we would find a company that would make good on their contractual obligations. Thank you for the blog and for keeping us up to date.
Dustin Mitchell
St. Louis, MO
Miami Beach, FL
Has it been reported which solutions providers couldn't keep up with Market America? Do they mean "keep up" from a technical/load standpoint or just that the service provider didn't see enough value in supporting Market America at this time? It'd be interesting to know what exactly came up short of expectations and for what reason.
Brian,
I think MA is just trying to be diplomatic here (by not naming the firm), because most people know who they're referring to. It's hardly a secret.
Amanda, The name isn't the important part here, it's the reasoning. I highly doubt this "solution provider" couldn't "handle" Market America's data from a technical standpoint. That is almost comical. I wonder if the real reason will come out. If it's a matter of not meeting MA's needs, I doubt they are going to find a firm that is willing to let Market America harness their name as if the firm thinks MA is the future of internet shopping.
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