Winter Olympics tech on track

A year before the Winter Olympics in Vancouver get under way the technological backbone is nearing the finish line.


The 2010 Olympic Games will depend on the 13 computer systems handling everything from streaming results worldwide to workforce management, as well as protecting the games from security breaches and technical faults.

Atos Origin, the company overseeing the installation of the Games' IT, says that systems are in place and are being put through 100,000 hours of testing.

"Like the athletes, this complex network of systems must work perfectly from the first moment, in front of three billion people. There is no second chance," Magnus Alvarsson, Atos Origin's chief integrator for the 2010 Games, said in a statement.

Atos Origin has overseen IT at the Olympic Games since 2002 and is responsible for overseeing the technology behind the London Games in 2012.

The London Games' chief integrator recently told ZDNet Asia's sister site Silicon.com that the IT backbone for the 2012 Games would be trimmed in a drive for "sustainability."