Slashdot Mirror
More NFL Players Attack Microsoft's $400M Surface Deal With The NFL (yahoo.com)
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."
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."
I think there were 400M reasons why they could not do this...
It's a product placement
Too bad most of the broadcasters covering the games refer to them as iPads.
"Footballs, like any business, requires a world-class suite of Productivity Solutions running on the best-selling operating system family out there. When I'm on the side of the football field area, I like that I can squirt a game strategy right into my spreadsheet, and it will calculate how I can sell the highest number of touched downs for the highest levels of productivity." -- NFL sports player
Oh sure. Now you want the NFL to teach linebackers words.
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.
So that's what they did with the Zune team.
Now the article all adds up.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Apple's willing to let their competitor spend 400m to promote the iPad instead.
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.
> That's a relatively new phenomenon and probably took many hours of re-training to achieve.
Lemmee guess...
Step 1) The tablets are first deployed. TV commenters call them "Ipads". Nasty letters from Microsoft legal.
Step 2) The tablets are reported to freeze/crash/etc. TV commenters call them "Ipads". Nasty letters from Apple legal.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
"Oh sure. Now you want the NFL to teach linebackers words"
Now, now. Those guys are college graduates. They know lots of words. Mostly short ones. But words nonetheless.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
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
The question is why the NFL didn't anticipate this and buy them ruggedized laptops.
There are about 400 million reasons.
It's just taking a knee for civil rights.
At least the Galaxy Note 7 can function as a hand warmer.
You are kidding right? You must not be in tech/software support. Hell a few lines of code in Linux will bring it to its knees faster the Kaepernick hearing the national anthem.