SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 28, 2006
iTunes Gets Back To Normal
Apple Won't Explain Why Its Music Store Had Delays In Downloads Earlier In The Week
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Analysts said the problems with downloading songs from Apple's iTunes Music Store was likely the result of too many people with holiday iPods and iTunes gift cards trying to access the site at once. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
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Apple officials didn't return telephone calls Thursday, and the company has not explained why some shoppers on Monday and Tuesday experienced 20-minute delays when they tried to download a song.
But Wall Street analysts said the delays were probably caused by music sales that dramatically exceeded the Cupertino-based company's own forecasts and resulted in too many people trying to access the site at once.
Four times as many people visited the iTunes on Christmas than at the same time last year, according to online market researcher Hitwise.
Apple commands about 75 percent of the market for downloaded music, but could lose as much as 5 percent of that market share in 2007 because of increased competition from rival services, according to Piper Jaffray.
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The secrets of tennis legend 
Its a lot more than just networking issues. There are probably the root issues encompassing the actual server(s) that are handling the interfaces into the backoffice stuff, servers, et al.
My hunch is that they did a lousy job at forcasting the trends, and didn't scale in more servers and bandwidth in anticipation of the holiday.
Stuff happens, Why are we embattling this in the first place?? I didn't know this was designed to help boost sales of Apple stock??? Lets get back to living and real news.
Lloyd-Dallas, TX