SMI Index Companies Websites Fall Short

Testing reveals slow loading and poor uptime; Nestlé noted as worst

Amsterdam, The Netherlands – March 2, 2010 – WatchMouse, a global industry leader in self-service website and application performance monitoring, tested the websites belonging to the companies listed on the SMI, the main stock market index for the SIX, Swiss Exchange, including 20 of the largest and most liquid large and mid-cap stocks on the exchange, for availability and performance. None of the SMI company websites registered 100% uptime. The websites with the lowest uptimes included Nestlé (93.5%), Richemont (95.9%) and SwissCom (97.5%). The websites with the best uptimes included SGS Group (99.9%), ABB (99.9%), and Syngenta (99.9%).

“These are 20 of the biggest public companies in Switzerland and five of their websites fall below the industry standard of 99.9% uptime or greater,” states Mark Pors, CTO and co-founder of WatchMouse. “These websites are key channels for these companies to attract new business, provide investors with information, and project a professional corporate image. We’re surprised that our research found that 25% of the sites are operating well below industry standards."

WatchMouse monitored the websites during the period of January 20 to February 26, 2010. According to industry standards, availability of greater than or equal to 99.9% is regarded as “good” while anything below 99% is regarded as “poor” site uptime.

The sites were checked every five minutes during the test period from one of the 42 WatchMouse global monitoring stations, and included a retrieval of the website home page, without graphics or frames. The home page was expected to load within eight seconds without any errors. If that time was exceeded or a server error occurred, WatchMouse verified the results using another of its monitoring stations. The result was counted as either poor availability or unavailable if a second error was established.

Click here to read the full report of all 20 SMI company websites uptime or visit http://smi.public-website-status.com for real-time status and statistical data on each website’s performance.

This website performance monitoring research covers the websites of the following organisations: ABB (ABBN), SGS (SGSN), Syngenta (SYNN), Holcim (HOLN), Actelion (ATLN), Swatch Group (UHR), Credit Suisse (CSGN), Swiss Re (RUKN), UBS (UBSN), Roche (ROG), Synthes (SYST), Lonza Group (LONN), Julius Baer Group (BAER), Novartis (NOVN), Adecco (ADEN), Swiss Life (SLHN), Zurich Financial (ZURN), Swisscom (SCMN), Richemont (CFR), Nestlé (NESN).

About WatchMouse

http://www.watchmouse.com/about.php