Ann: Norwood Consolidates World Phone Post Android Launch, page-191

Not enjoying the ride at the moment either ... but take a lot of positives in yesterday's ANN ... despite where market sentiment is pushing the SP.

In my day to day life I work for an organisation that turns over billions in revenue each year, with a strong online presence. Without divulging too much about myself in my role I support critical IT functions and I see these kind of issues even in my own work space.

Some of the problems Norwood outlined in their announcement (whilst unfortunate) are in hindsight the kind of issues you would die to have as a start-up, or for any established company launching an online service.

Imagine, your projected uptake of new / potential customers far exceeds the capacity of your system. I cannot see how that is a bad thing. Think what happens during click frenzy sales events as another example.

Sure they had to throttle services to maintain a level of stability, but I'm quite certain there were many learning's to be gathered about future capacity requirements. With Cloud based services, no one is going to pay for excessive capacity you do not think you need. You base your service on projected volumes plus some extra headroom to get you by, being mindful of the cost.

Norwood I am sure would have factored this in, and you cannot be too critical if they are overwhelmed by interest.


Christmas will be a very interesting time for Norwood as capacity will be tested again. Even if the news in early Jan is good or bad, it will be giving them further benchmarks on how much they need to expand their services to meet with growing demand. The underlying message from their announcement is that demand is growing rapidly, and Norwood is already stretching its boundaries.

As for revenue, early days yet. But let's see how next year unfolds.

As with everything, DYOR.