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The Media Advertising Handhelds Microsoft

More NFL Players Attack Microsoft's $400M Surface Deal With The NFL (yahoo.com) 236

Posted by EditorDavid from the scratching-the-Surface dept.
An anonymous reader writes; "These tablets always malfunction," complained one NFL offensive lineman in January, foreshadowing a growing backlash to Microsoft's $400 million deal with the NFL to use Surface tablets. Friday the coach of the San Francisco 49ers and their controversial quarterback Colin Kaepernick both complained they've also experienced problems, with Kaepernick saying the screen freezes "every once in a while and they have to reboot it."

Friday Microsoft called their tablet "the center of the debate on the role of technology in the NFL," saying they deeply respect NFL teams "and the IT pro's who work tirelessly behind the scenes to help them succeed." It included quotes from NFL quarterbacks -- for example, "Every second counts and having Microsoft Surface technology on sidelines allows players and coaches to analyze what our opponents are trying to do in almost real time." But Yahoo Finance wrote that "The quotes read like they were written by the Microsoft public relations team," arguing that Microsoft's NFL deal "has been a disaster... The tablets failed to work during a crucial AFC Championship game last January -- again for the New England Patriots... sports media interpreted that the malfunction benefited the Broncos on the field, giving the team an unfair advantage -- the very last thing Microsoft's tablets, meant to aid coaches in their play calling, should be doing."
The NFL issued a statement calling Microsoft "an integral, strategic partner of the NFL," adding "Within our complex environment, many factors can affect the performance of a particular technology either related to or outside of our partner's solutions."
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More NFL Players Attack Microsoft's $400M Surface Deal With The NFL More

More NFL Players Attack Microsoft's $400M Surface Deal With The NFL

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  • Considering they fail at nearly sixty times... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 23, 2016 @05:47PM (#53136053)

    the rate as our iPads, I believe that. Of course, they're real computers and more complicated, but sixty times more is just killing our IT department.

  • Why not use what's good enough for pilots? (Score:5, Informative)

    by TigerPlish ( 174064 ) on Sunday October 23, 2016 @05:52PM (#53136067)

    Why not use something airline pilots are already using? [wikipedia.org]

    Good enough for commercial aviation, good enough for pro football?

  • Product placement (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Silverhammer ( 13644 ) on Sunday October 23, 2016 @06:03PM (#53136115)

    It's a product placement, not an actual solution.The NFL is counting it as advertising revenue. Therefore, no one cares what the end users and support staff think about it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by KiloByte ( 825081 )

      Therefore, no one cares what the end users and support staff think about it.

      To the contrary, such a resounding failure shows that at least in some cases, end users' opinions do matter. I personally don't give a flying intercourse about National (ie, USian) Football (ie, handegg) League, nor of any other football (real or american) league, but plenty of people Microsoft would want to market Surface to do care.

    • Re:Product placement (Score:5, Funny)

      by rudy_wayne ( 414635 ) on Sunday October 23, 2016 @06:13PM (#53136153)

      It's a product placement

      Too bad most of the broadcasters covering the games refer to them as iPads.

      • Re:Product placement (Score:5, Interesting)

        by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday October 23, 2016 @06:28PM (#53136189)

        Too bad most of the broadcasters covering the games refer to them as iPads.

        I was watching the playoff game where the Surfaces weren't responding... the television crew correctly referred to them as "Microsoft Surface" multiple times while discussing the problems.

        In the end, it doesn't really matter if this is an innate problem with the Surface, or if it's a problem with the supporting network infrastructure. Microsoft obviously pictured this as a huge PR opportunity, so they should've considered the possible issues and taken steps to deal with them ahead of time. Certainly stadium wifi congestion has been a known issue for quite a while - why didn't Microsoft think about it?

        • Re:Product placement (Score:5, Informative)

          by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Sunday October 23, 2016 @06:59PM (#53136279)

          I'm going to guess that those who complain about them don't (or even can't) distinguish crashes or freezes from connectivity issues [networkworld.com]. This isn't really a new story, as these sorts of glitches have been happening on occasion since being introduced. Given that these things obviously rely on wireless info feeds, and (as you indicated) that such wireless or communication systems fail in stadiums on occasion [espn.com], I'm not sure I'd be so quick to blame the hardware or software.

          I've seen that, as an MMO developer, whenever an ISP has a problem, people immediately blame the developer for whatever lag or disconnectivity they're experiencing. I think it's human nature to blame the software or hardware sitting in front of them rather than some invisible infrastructure sitting in-between.

          I'd agree though, that this is something that Microsoft should have considered. It was risky to push something like this when there was a chance for very public and visible failures like that, even if it's not necessarily Microsoft's fault. Moreover, I really dislike the NFL pushing tools like this on the teams. They should have an opportunity to use their choice of technology when it comes to tools used in course of the game (within reasonable limits, of course). This is nothing like "official coffee of the NFL". This is a tool that can actually make an impact on the game if it succeeds or fails.

          • That's why a lot of games now include a 'lag meter' to let the user know it's not the software but the connection.

          • I am an actual "networking professional", and I can tell you, that there is often very little distinction between network infrastructure that isn't responding, and hardware that is on the verge of locking up. The only real way to tell is to "reboot" and see if it goes away. And that does make it look like it is the device, and not the network (to the untrained).

            We issue troubleshooting tips based on how easy they are to complete by the end user, and then assess from there. We don't tend to have easy tools t

    • It's a product placement, not an actual solution.The NFL is counting it as advertising revenue. Therefore, no one cares what the end users and support staff think about it.

      If they can reduce reliance on ads maybe they will be allowed to reduce the turnaround time on plays and not have 6 second plays followed by 5 minutes of advertising?

      Theres a joke: Football players run miles in training; they run for 6 seconds, have a 5 minute break, run another 6 seconds and so on until they've run a mile!

      Football is slowed down so much for the sake of advertising with these huge breaks between plays while the players just wander about and slowly slowly organize themselves for the next pla

      • Re:Product placement (Score:4, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 23, 2016 @06:56PM (#53136269)

        Football is slowed down so much for the sake of advertising with these huge breaks between plays while the players just wander about and slowly slowly organize themselves for the next play.

        That's why i like the non-stop action of soccer. 22 people randomly kicking a ball around until eventually someone accidentally kicks it into the goal.

        • Football is slowed down so much for the sake of advertising with these huge breaks between plays while the players just wander about and slowly slowly organize themselves for the next play.

          That's why i like the non-stop action of soccer. 22 people randomly kicking a ball around until eventually someone accidentally kicks it into the goal.

          Or theres Rugby LOL. Soccer vs Rugby; Soccer is 90 minutes spent pretending you are hurt. Rugby is 80 minutes pretending you aren't hurt!

          Ice hockey is pretty good too for non stop action.

        • Re: Product placement (Score:5, Funny)

          by Osgeld ( 1900440 ) on Sunday October 23, 2016 @09:19PM (#53136729)

          You must watch a different soccer, the one I watch stops the game every nanometer of ball travel for some bitch to fall on the ground all Nancy Carrigan style

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Try women's football (soccer). Lots less diving and cheating, much more fluid play. They don't have as many pro teams yet, but the last few World Cups had some great games.

            It seems like a lot of sports have gone that way. The more money in them, the less interesting they become to watch.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by amiga3D ( 567632 )

        Given that the game has 1 hour of actual playing time and maybe 7 or 8 seconds of action per play and about 2 plays per minute that doesn't add up to much action in a game that drones on about 3 and a half hours. I've taken to DVR recording the games now and I start watching them after half time has ended. I fast forward through all the timeouts and commercials and generally I catch up to real time about the last few minutes of the game. I'm an Atlanta Falcons fan and generally all their games come down

        • Given that the game has 1 hour of actual playing time and maybe 7 or 8 seconds of action per play and about 2 plays per minute that doesn't add up to much action in a game that drones on about 3 and a half hours.

          "1 hour of actual playing time"? Try 11 minutes [qz.com] of actual football action. While the sport has some pretty amazing highlights there is a TON of waiting around while nothing actually happens.

          • This may be true, but when it takes a pitcher (baseball) longer to throw a single pitch than it does to coordinate 11 (22 if you're counting both sides) from the completion of the last play to the start of the next that is ridiculous. Put players on base, and the time goes up excruciatingly so. Throw the damn pitch already; it shouldn't take two minutes to toss a ball 60'6".

      • Football isn't "slowed down". It was designed to support TV ads. It's a lazy spectator's sport. The whole ecosystem is designed from the ground up to be a show with branding, ads, and stuff to buy.

        No other sport fits the schedule of television as well as American Football. Nor has anything enjoyed its success. Comparatively, Pro Wrestling is a distant second.

        • Baseball is pretty close: throw ball, hit ball, run, ad break, repeat.

          • Baseball is all about story telling. You can tell a complete story between pitches. Sometimes two. It often takes longer to toss a pitch than it does to run a play or two in football.

  • these things should have zero problems. They're running a bunch of data driven apps, probably web apps. My cheapo LG phone crashes, sure. But it was $100 bucks. These are $1000+ tablets that are crashing enough for folks to complain. What the hell is going on?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      They run exactly one application. They are locked down to run nothing else. They boot into the application. What is it that this application does? It shows overhead pictures of plays so that players and coaches can review the on-field strategy.

      Prior to the NFL's decision to use tablets, the pictures were printed in the team booth and delivered to the sidelines by runners. Why replace something that works with something new? Product placement $$.

      In short it was a technical decision made by the marketing

      • If they are getting data off a server, then the problem may be the WiFi link, not the tablet. If all the data is kept locally on the tablet, then yes, the surface pro sucks.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by amiga3D ( 567632 )

      I can't remember the last time I had to hard boot a computer that I own either Mac or Linux. At work they've got Win 7 Pro on all our stuff and it's generally stable enough as I think it's been about 2 years since I had to hard boot one. When we had Vista about 50 percent of them where down at any one time. Win 7 was the best thing ever to happen to our IT guys.

  • Yep. they do. Not worth the full MSRP, but worth it used a year later for 50% the price as long as you understand the the things are as stable as a low end windows laptop.

  • MS is Making Progress (Score:4, Funny)

    by CanadianMacFan ( 1900244 ) on Sunday October 23, 2016 @07:28PM (#53136401)

    Up until now everyone in the NFL and media has been referring to them as iPads. Microsoft has finally figured out how to get people to refer to their hardware by name.

  • NFL doesn't care what tablet are used, they only care who will pay the most for the exclusive deal. a 1 hour game takes 3 1/2 hours to get done greed baby greed

    • Also, there's only about 11 minutes of action per game:
      http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB... [wsj.com]

      I enjoy watching games, but only with it pre-recorded. It takes about 30 minutes per game (I watch penalty determination, reviews, and injuries alongside the brief actual game play).

      Or, and I really like this, I let the game play at real time and pick up a bit between plays and clean during commercials. I can get 2 hours of stuff done during one game, and some exercise (running in from the kitchen to catch the start of

  • I am amused by this. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by No Longer an AC ( 4611353 ) on Sunday October 23, 2016 @08:33PM (#53136601) Journal

    I used to be a football fan. I used to go to games. Then it slowly dawned on me that my favorite team wasn't owned by people who cared about winning. It was all about money.

    Yeah, call me naive for not figuring that out sooner.

    The labor disputes weren't enough for me, but when the owner started threatening to move to Florida I started getting turned off. They didn't move to Florida, but they did move to Tennessee.

    The only good thing about sports in my opinion for the last 15-20 years is when there's a good scandal and NFL coaches turning on a major sponsor ranks right up there.

    They can't give teams their choice of technology because of sponsors who bought the whole league. They can't give teams full control of their devices because there are too many cheaters. They make billions annually but even partnered with Microsoft they cannot satisfy their coaches with their technology.

    Hearing stuff like the announcers referred to their Microsoft Surfaces as iPads for the first couple of seasons is just icing on the cake.

    Some have said it's just problems with wireless connectivity and thousands of fans in the same place all using their cell phones but couldn't they overcome that if it is what the problem really is?

    • And now they are here in TN they suck so bad I can't remember wanting to watch them

      2005? Maybe

    • Some have said it's just problems with wireless connectivity and thousands of fans in the same place all using their cell phones but couldn't they overcome that if it is what the problem really is?

      No... Just take a look at how often the NFL still has problems with wireless headsets and this is something that the people who put on concerts have solved long ago.

    • Re:I am amused by this. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Monday October 24, 2016 @02:03AM (#53137271)
      The "threatening to move" really pisses me off, because they only do that to convince the public to pay for a more lavish stadium that they should be paying for themselves, How does it make sense to anyone to pay $500 million for a stadium in order to subsidize a billionaire's football team? (Seahawks, I'm looking at you. Even worse because they used taxes from all of Washington state, so people in Eastern Washington who could care less about the Seahawks are still paying for their stadium.) This payment of welfare to billionaires has got to stop!
      • There is starting to be some pushback in some places over this. St. Louis refused to subsidize a new stadium and they don't have an NFL team any more. Currently in MLB, the Arizona Diamondbacks are demanding that the county where their stadium is located either build them a new stadium or pay for upgrades on the current one so costly that they might as well just build a new stadium. The county is calling their bluff and telling them that they'd rather lose the team than pay even for the upgrades and the
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • An inside perspective (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 23, 2016 @09:41PM (#53136787)

    I knew somebody involved in making specialized software for the NFL. Their company wanted to use iOS, but the Microsoft Surface deal got made and there was pressure from above to move everything to the Surface. (Apparently, individual teams still hold a certain degree of autonomy, so it wasn't absolutely required in all places.) The product was already pushing the technology bounds of what the iPhone could do and development for the Surface was still pretty raw back then. And the football teams that used the software much preferred iOS too. So there was a lot of unhappiness all around.

    But a more interesting aspect was the monetary arrangements. The company was developing for peanuts, below their costs. The NFL really takes advantage of the fact that both everybody wants to work with them for the prestige, and that the NFL is a non-profit. When I asked why he was willing to do all this at a loss, he said was because other sports venues like Major League Baseball and the NBA are not non-profits and actually pay well. They take their cues from the NFL. So if you can get in with the NFL, you can make the big money later by selling to the others.

    And he suspects the Microsoft Surface deal itself was structured along the lines of this thinking... Microsoft basically giving away Surfaces to the NFL wanting both publicity and hoping to later actually sell to markets that actually pay money.

     

  • It's the stadium stupid (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Snotnose ( 212196 ) on Sunday October 23, 2016 @10:40PM (#53136921)
    The devices assume a certain amount of bandwidth. Stadiums don't have enough bandwidth because A) cheap stadium managers won't pay for it; and B) on game day you have thousands of fans using various devices using various frequency bands to do who knows what.

    I've never used one of these devices but I'm gonna guess Microsoft doesn't handle bandwidth congestion issues well. That, and these millionaire football folks all have 1 gig bandwidth with 1 ms latency at home, and have never experienced network lag in their lives.
    • We had a similar problem at a bluegrass festival with just 5000 people, 4 different free WiFi access points, all unusable because connections timed out due to being so overloaded. Of course, cellular reception was virtually non-existent, so everybody there was trying to call over WiFi too. I'd say if you're trying to do anything over WiFi in a football stadium, you're gonna have a bad time!

  • It's not freezing... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Stonent1 ( 594886 ) <stonent AT stone ... intclark DOT net> on Monday October 24, 2016 @12:39AM (#53137163) Journal
    It's just taking a knee for civil rights.
  • Based on my experience with WiFi, which is nowhere near a mature standard, I'd really expect to have problems with WiFi communication in a stadium with 50,000 people in it, regardless of what type of hardware is used. However, the problems they are describing don't sound like WiFi problems. I would expect communications with a server to be slow and perhaps stall for several seconds while the connection is reestablished. The software should be smart enough to recover without rebooting. Perhaps doing everythi

    • The software should be smart enough to recover without rebooting.

      And you have just hit on the difference that makes all the difference.

      If Windows in a mobile application is finicky about re-establishing broken network connections, then that would be the kiss of death in a crowded WiFi environment.

      Can anyone with Surface Pro 4 and W10 experience, who is not a shill, speak to how robust the WiFi/network hardware and software stack is under iffy WiFi conditions?

  • Windows 10 (Score:2, Informative)

    by SuperDre ( 982372 )
    I guess they have updated to the latest anniversary update of windows 10. Since that update I also need to reboot almost everyday because it just locks up, never had any problems before that update.. And it doesn't seem to be fixed any time soon...

  • The tablets failed to work during a crucial AFC Championship game last January -- again for the New England Patriots...

    Aww, that's so awful for the Patriots. While the tablets may be to blame, it's hard for me to feel too bad for a team with a history of "communication issues" [nbcsports.com] for visiting teams.

    My .02, get rid of tablets, photos, phone calls, headphones, and anything else other than the coaches and players on the playing field and sideline talking to each other in person. They can all carry around clipboa

  • Remember when Apple sold massively discounted computers to school districts back in the day so kids would get used to using them and want something familiar at home? Then of course they were so crash-prone and awful that kids wanted anything other than what they used at school. It looks like MS is adopting the same strategy. I won't discount the lack of technical skills of players and coaches though.

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