The Purple Team's first sports website was for the Wimbledon
Championships. We undertook this web development at the request of IBM,
who were the official technology suppliers to Wimbledon but had not yet
fully developed their own web development capability. It took some
persuading to convince the Wimbledon management to risk using the
Internet, which at the time was still in its commercial infancy. The
Wimbledon management's highest priority was to appear professional in
how they handled all their media. In other words, they were less
concerned about being a pioneer than about getting it precisely right.
In the event, Purple designed and produced a
fully-featured live-results reporting website -- enabling the user to
track live results on 18 different matches simultaneously. In
information, look and feel, the site was commensurate in professionalism
with Wimbledon's coverage in other, more traditional media such as
television. This early success was the start of a two-year relationship
with IBM, during which time the Purple Team helped IBM to develop the
first official websites
for several other tennis tournaments: the US Open, Australian Open and
French Open.
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