OpenOffice.org, the open source office suite, launched version 3.0 yesterday. The demand for the new version seems to have taken OpenOffice.org off guard because their website hasn’t been able to handle the load, as has been reported from several places around the Web.
In the meantime, OpenOffice.org has put up a simplified static page with download links, but even that hasn’t been enough to ensure the website’s stability. As of this writing, the website fails to load, though we managed to access it earlier to take the screenshot you see below.
On the static page, you can read the following statement:
Apologies – our website is struggling to cope with the unprecedented demand for the new release 3.0 of OpenOffice.org. The technical teams are trying to come up with a solution.
Putting up a simple static HTML page is a relatively common tactic to try and get as much as possible out of your web server (and bandwidth) when it is being overwhelmed by traffic like this. Ubuntu has also put up a static page in the past when new versions have caused traffic storms to its official website.
In this case it hasn’t been enough, though.
