The new federal Web-based registration website for contractors, “SAM.gov,” is still having performance glitches more than two weeks after its debut.

The General Services Administration sent a “letter of concern” to SAM.gov contractor IBM Corp. with orders to fix the problems, according to a report by Federal News Radio.

SAM, (System for Award Management) is the GSA’s new central website for consolidating nine major acquisition-related systems, including the former CCR (Central Contractor Registration) database, Excluded Parties List System and the Past Performance Information Retrieval System. Migrations will be ongoing over the next several years.

SAM launched on July 31, a month late, and almost immediately began experiencing troubles. GSA took SAM offline for repairs for several days, and the system returned to operation on Aug. 7.

However, SAM continued to exhibit problems this week, according to a live message posted on the website by GSA.

“SAM is still experiencing some performance issues, which may result in a slowness of page loading or maybe even a web page error. We are working to improve these issues as quickly as possible. We appreciate your patience,” the message stated.

The GSA is taking steps to address the issues with IBM, which had been hired under a $74 million contract in 2010.

On Aug. 7, the GSA issued an official “letter of concern” to IBM to fix the SAM problems, including developing a plan of action and milestones, according to a report by Federal News Radio.

A letter of concern is a step before a cure letter, indicating problems with performance but not as severe as a cure letter.

“The agency is committed to working with IBM to quickly resolve the issues with the system,” GSA spokeswoman Mafara Hobson told Federal News Radio. “The goal is to get it up and running as soon as possible.

IBM officials referred all comments to GSA, the newspaper said.

GovKinex, an Orlando, FL company that assists vendors, said users have reported trouble spots.

“SAM was launched last month and has been causing headaches for users ever since. With significant downtime and crippling errors, many users have been searching for help getting their registration completed,” GovKinex said in a news release.

The GSA’s original vision for SAM was much more ambitious, according to the Project on Government Oversight watchdog group. The idea originated in 2001.

“For the GSA, getting to this point has not been easy. A lack of funding, coupled with the dramatic rise in costs (from $96 million to $181 million), forced GSA to delay SAM’s Phase 1 roll-out and scale back its ambition for future phases,” the watchdog group said in a recent report.

In March, the Government Accountability Office asked the GSA to reevaluate SAM to see whether it was still cost-effective.