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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."
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 something airline pilots are already using?
Good enough for commercial aviation, good enough for pro football?
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
They're using Surface tablets?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
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.
I'd love to see a more thorough technical analysis done. Put a debug tool that monitors the system in real-time. Analyze every sports stadium and their network and equipment infrastructure. And put out a whitepaper that details everything.
Do we know if every NFL stadium has dedicated AP equipment with isolated and prioritized vLANs routing on-the-field device data directly to-and-from their supporting hardware infrastructure? Do we know if every device works with a clean OS install before every game? Are the servers consistent in every stadium? For all we know, someone may have patched two switches together across an old 100Mb link just to get things operational, or someone's running the hosting software on some old P4 server that can't handle the demand, or someone swapped the away team's AP with a cheapo D-Link unit they got at Target, or sixty thousand smartphones are choking the Surface tablet traffic.
It's easy to blame things on Microsoft, especially when your profession is football and not IT. But, in my experience, more often than not, someone screwed up the infrastructure side of the equation.
Oh sure. Now you want the NFL to teach linebackers words.
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 dept. ("Hey, Microsoft will pay us for product placement... Somebody crap out an app over the weekend!")
I've run into numerous bugs on Linux. I've been using it since 1999 since I finally gave up on Amiga hardware developments and moved on. During that time it has improved by leaps and bounds and has always been very stable but did suffer a lot from lack of driver support by hardware makers. It has been years since I had to hard boot a linux box though even when programs crashed. I've had to use Xkill a few times or open a terminal and kill a choked program by hand. These are generally bugs not in applications and not in Linux itself but you can see by the Kernel change log that developers are constantly chasing bugs.
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.
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?
It's not hardware and Windows is not solid -- at all.
My mouse stops working. I remove it and put it back and it works again. The hardware has not stopped, the mouse didn't overheat. It's just the OS that decided not to see it anymore.
Now, it's on the back of the CPU, so I decide to connect it to front USB ports -- just to make testing easier.
It doesn't work. A balloon states it is searching for a driver for the mouse. What for? Does Windows have different drivers for the same mouse if we plug it on different USBs? Why the f*? I do it at home in Linux all the time, I can connect the mouse to any of the USB ports. It works instantly. Why not in Windows (which idiots say it's easier)?
After some time I get tired of waiting for the driver to install, because the minutes go away and nothing happens. I look at the screen and there's a message inside the balloon: "Click here for more info". OK, please tell me because I may be stupid since I'm not able to use the fine Microsoft software: how can I click on anything without a mouse?
Well, I kinda feel the OS has won and put the mouse back on the same port it was connected to. Then it works and I quickly click on the balloon -- only to learn that there's an explanation about Windows not being able to get a mouse driver (online or from Windows Update, AFAIR).
Duh, we have security standards, of course the PC won't reach Microsoft. The IT people cannot allow that. But how would I know if I didn't click on the balloon? And no, I can't do it without a mouse! Nobody can!
And you know what? There's a message asking if I want to quit retrieving the mouse driver from Windows Update? Well, that won't work, so only a stupid user would insist on that (oh, wait, this is Windows, stupid user is the standard). So I click on quit or cancel or whatever, thinking I'll have the opportunity to locate the very same driver that is in use to see the mouse at the back of the CPU tower. (I did that before, it's not cool to look for a needed piece of software in your own machine -- the OS should know where it is... but... *sigh*).
Except no. You say you don't want Windows to get the driver from some online repo and that's it. End of story, no further dialog. You just stay there looking at the screen -- without a mouse pointer!
Because their computers, you know, actually work.
It sounded more to me like they were complaining about random hangs and reboots--not sure how better marketing is going to fix that.
FWIW, Belichick was using a clipboard and a pencil on the sidelines today instead of a tablet. I assume it worked. The Patriots won.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
"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
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.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...
It's just taking a knee for civil rights.
It doesn't work. A balloon states it is searching for a driver for the mouse. What for? Does Windows have different drivers for the same mouse if we plug it on different USBs? Why the f*? I do it at home in Linux all the time, I can connect the mouse to any of the USB ports. It works instantly. Why not in Windows (which idiots say it's easier)?
I can't speak to the Surface; but my work laptop, a Samsung RV511 running Win 7 Pro, has 3 USB ports. Two on the left side, and 1 on the right. I can plug something into either of the Left ports with no complaint; but if I plug that same device into the Right-hand Port, it acts like it has never seen it before. And vice-versa with something that was originally plugged into the Right-hand Port being moved over to the Left. It's a Brand New Day.
All I can think of is that those two sets of Ports are probably on two different USB Controllers (remember, this is a LAPTOP. It isn't like we're talking on-board-ports vs. ports-on-a-PCI-card), and Windows is too retarded to poke around in its own Current Configuration to see if the damned DRIVER is actually ALREADY INSTALLED. Even if it had to make a redundant copy of the Driver, at least it could do it SILENTLY, rather than acting like a horse that was approached from the wrong side (horses have no Corpus Callosum; so each hemisphere has its own visual-record and memory); IOW, it freaks out...
Say what you will about Macs and OS X, at least they don't do retarded shit like that! Glad to see Linux is also smart enough to recognize things that have been plugged in elsewhere before ON THE SAME COMPUTER.
How about not complicating a game about couple of guys throwing a ball around to the point where you need a convoluted IT infrastructure to support it?
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?
The highest service Congress can perform with a bad president is to not pass stupid stuff the president wants just to look like they are achieving something. Our constitutiion has checks and balances to try to limit damage from one branch going off the rails.
Whichever candidate gets elected this time around, an obstructionist congress would be an excellent thing to have.
I think we can all agree the NFL isn't most businesses. Considering how much US tax dollars go to subsidize stadiums, their (until recently) tax-exempt status... Why pay for things when you can get paid for product placement?