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

Posted by EditorDavid on 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."

12 of 236 comments (clear)

  1. Why not use what's good enough for pilots? by TigerPlish · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.
    1. Re:Why not use what's good enough for pilots? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I think there were 400M reasons why they could not do this...

    2. Re:Why not use what's good enough for pilots? by rudy_wayne · · Score: 5, Informative

      I think there were 400M reasons why they could not do this...

      Exactly.

      I also like Microsoft's PR spin on this:

      It included quotes from NFL quarterbacks -- for example, ". . . having Microsoft Surface technology on sidelines allows players and coaches to analyze what our opponents are trying to do in almost real time."

      I can guarantee you that no football player anywhere has ever said that.

    3. Re:Why not use what's good enough for pilots? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      "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

    4. Re:Why not use what's good enough for pilots? by Dracos · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Apple doesn't need to, their devices have mindshare.

      MS is incapable of marketing effectively to end users (except XBox), so they must buy their mindshare.

    5. Re:Why not use what's good enough for pilots? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Apple's willing to let their competitor spend 400m to promote the iPad instead.

  2. Product placement by Silverhammer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Product placement by rudy_wayne · · Score: 5, Funny

      It's a product placement

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

    2. Re:Product placement by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm going to guess that those who complain about them don't (or even can't) distinguish crashes or freezes from connectivity issues. 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, 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.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  3. Re:When I am doing something important... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh sure. Now you want the NFL to teach linebackers words.

  4. An inside perspective by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

     

  5. Re:I am amused by this. by Locke2005 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.