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Grounded By Dead Data Center, Airline CEO Flogs IBM

Written by Fred J. Aun
October 20th, 2009
IBM is one of the largest technology suppliers in retail, especially in E-Commerce. But if certain Air New Zealand execs get their way, the percentage of Big Blue's total revenue that comes from retail will go up—in a bad way.

Operations at Air New Zealand came to a halt for about four hours Sunday, October 11 when an IBM data center suffered a power failure and a back-up generator failed to kick-in because of a faulty oil-pressure sensor. But the intriguing part was the response by airline CEO Rob Fyfe, who in an E-mail to IBM seemed to show that he suffers from a pressure control glitch of his own. "In my 30-year working career, I am struggling to recall a time where I have seen a supplier so slow to react to a catastrophic system failure such as this and so unwilling to accept responsibility and apologize to its client and its client's customers," the E-mail said.

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