Rasheed
(by the way, my emails are still blocked from a few domains that don't
like usa.net -- that's fine with me considering that this free email
provider gives me 10 MB email space, free forwarding, free pop, and 800
number customer service support which actually solved a technical problem
I had with the service emailer. They have delayed their IPO, MBOX, but it
will probably be relisted when the IPO market gets hot again.)
SAN JOSE, Calif. (Reuters) - Online auction house eBay Inc. said second
quarter revenues will be about $3 million to $5 million lower on the
fallout from a nearly 22 hour outage on its Internet site Friday.
EBay said a failure in software from Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq:SUNW -
news) caused its service to go down Thursday. The site returned to service
at 1725 PDT Friday.
EBay said it would extend auctions scheduled to expire during the outage
by 48 hours and would refund all fees for all auctions between June 9 and
June 11.
The outage, extensions and refunds are expected to lower second quarter
earnings by $3 million to $5 million, the company said in a statement
released late Friday.
Analysts expected second quarter earnings of 5 cents per share for the
company, which made its public debut in September 1998, compared with 2
cents a share a year ago, according to First Call Corp.
``We know we must provide continuous service for our community, and that
we have let our community down,'' said Meg Whitman, eBay's president and
chief executive. ``We will not rest until we make sure that this problem
will not occur again and that we make things right for our users.''
Friday's outage was the worst in the company's short history and drove the
stock to close down $16.81 at $165.88 on the Nasdaq Friday.
EBay said as a result of the outage, it implemented a new policy for
unscheduled outages of two hours or more. In those cases, eBay said it
will extend by 24 hours all auctions that would have ended during or one
hour after the outage and will automatically refund all fees for those
auctions.
``Although we know that extending auctions and refunding money will never
be enough, we feel that this new policy illustrates our commitment to our
community,'' Whitman said.
EBay said it believes all information and data on the site is secure and
no data was lost during the outage.
An eBay spokesman said Friday a failure in the software used to list items
for sale and update bids caused the service to crash. EBay later said the
software is provided by Sun.
``We will continue to devote the best technical and service resources of
Sun Microsystems to ensure the level of service the eBay community
demands,'' said Ed Zander, president and chief operating officer of Sun
Microsystems.
-- UC Irvine, Class of 1999 - Permanent email: rasheed@usa.net