Rich Unger's Blog

JavaOne registration page bites

Today's the last day to get the early bird alumni discount. So, I went over to http://java.sun.com/javaone/sf/registration.jsp to register.

Problem 1: The price for a pass with the alumni discount is $1495. However, when you go through the registration process, it quotes you $1595 and asks for your credit card info.

I called up the hotline, and the attendent told me that you put your CC info in, then it figures out if you're eligible for certain discounts and calculates your total. Terrible. No ecommerce site I've ever seen asks for your CC info without giving you the final total first, much less leads you to believe you're paying more than you should.

Problem 2: When entering my CC billing address, the first question it asks is "Different Address? Yes/No". Well, different from what, exactly? There's no address to compare it to. Terrible!

C'mon folks. You're supposed to be the experts at this stuff. That's why people are coming to this conference in the first place!

Comments

• although sun is an expert at implementing systems, that does not necessarily make them an expert merchant. i totally agree that this kind of stuff is pretty horrible. i find it somewhat funny. it's always been this way. i'd also say that sun's online store for hardware is similarly out of tune. i wonder whether they're still going to run netscape 4 ("communicator") on the public terminals at javaone in 2006. :-)

  Posted by: eitan on February 15, 2006 at 03:08 PM

• Rich

  I mentioned about my bad experience with JavaOne registration last year and the year before in my blog Sun Java store implemented in ASP. I don't remember all the details. I just remembered it was horrible. Now you just reminded all of us. Apparently, Sun has not improved a bit in 3 years. In my blog, you'll also see Sun Java web store is done in ASP.

  Posted by: kevinhle on February 15, 2006 at 03:38 PM

• When my co-worker registered he accidently pressed the reload button on a page a few times and then the registration came up with a total of $1,195 instead of $1,495.

  Since he's an honest guy he reported it to Sun.
  

  Posted by: marvi on February 15, 2006 at 08:04 PM

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