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posted by martyb on Wednesday October 19 2016, @12:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the problems-come-to-the-surface dept.

USA Today reports:

Bill Belichick is sticking to his old fashioned ways on one technological front. After the image of the New England Patriots coach slamming a Microsoft Surface tablet on the sidelines in a Week 4 game against the Buffalo Bills went viral, Belichick explained Tuesday why he is fed up with the product. "As you probably noticed, I'm done with the tablets," Belichick said. "They're just too undependable for me. I'm going to stick with pictures, which several of our other coaches do, as well, because there just isn't enough consistency in the performance of the tablets. I just can't take it anymore."

The normally reserved Belichick, who previously has expressed his frustration with tablets, explained his stance for more than five minutes, harping on the unreliable nature of technology. [https://twitter.com/ZackCoxNESN/status/788411998006603776/photo/1]

Microsoft has responded:

"We respect Coach Belichick's decision, but stand behind the reliability of Surface," the statement read. "We continue to receive positive feedback on having Surface devices on the sidelines from coaches, players and team personnel across the league. In the instances where sideline issues are reported in NFL games, we work closely with the NFL to quickly address and resolve."

Also at ESPN, NYT, TechCrunch, and The Seattle Times.

Previously:
Microsoft has Lost $1.73B on the Surface Since its Debut in 2012 (August 8, 2014)
MS Pays NFL $400M To Use Surface, Announcers Call Them iPads
Surface Pros Lose Wireless Connectivity in NFL Championship Game


Original Submission

Related Stories

Microsoft has Lost $1.73B on the Surface Since its Debut in 2012 39 comments

Eugene Kim writes in a TechSecurityUpdate.com piece:

Microsoft is bleeding cash from its Surface tablets and may soon have to consider shutting down the business altogether, Computerworld's Gregg Keizer wrote in a compelling piece against the Surface.

Keizer did his own back-of-the-envelope calculation to estimate that Microsoft has lost $1.73 billion since the Surface's debut in 2012. The total loss for FY2014 was $680 million, and it was $1.049 [b]illion for the year before, according to Keizer.

His calculations also revealed that in the June 2014 quarter alone, the Surface had lost $363 million, the largest quarterly loss for the Surface since Microsoft started releasing quarterly revenue figures.

He said some of the losses was due to massive write-offs from the Surface Mini, which never hit the market despite being ready for production, out of fear it would not sell well.

The loss also included some of the manufacturing cost of the Surface Pro 3, which only started to sell on Aug. 1. Because of its late release, only a small portion of its sales were included in the June quarter's earnings.

Keizer argued $1.73 billion may not be that big of a loss for a company as big as Microsoft, but it's still a sizeable figure considering it represented 3% of Microsoft's FY2014 gross margin. He said Microsoft's year-over-year revenue growth would have been almost 1% had the Surface unit broken even last year.

MS Pays NFL $400M To Use Surface, Announcers Call Them iPads 45 comments

Business Insider reports that prior to the season, Microsoft and the NFL struck a 5-year, $400 million deal with one of the major components being that the Microsoft Surface would become "the official tablet of the NFL" with coaches and players using the Surface on the sidelines during games. But the campaign is off to a rocky start when during week one of the season at least two television announcers mistakenly referred to the tablets as iPads giving Apple some unexpected exposure. As the camera focused in on the sideline during Sunday’s matchup between the Saints and the Falcons, the commentators mentioned that Drew Bress wasn’t “watching movies on his iPad.” Instead, he was studying the Falcons’ defense on his “iPad-like tool.” The people in the booth seem to know that a deal has taken to place to get tablets on the sidelines, but it’s clear they weren’t briefed on the actual name of the device in question. Adding to the confusion, the tablets have been covered in enormous, protective cases to ensure they aren’t broken while dozens of 300 pound linemen stomp on and off the field. Microsoft may be understandably peeved about this after committing to spend $400 million on an exclusive advertising and equipment deal with the NFL, but then the networks that cover the games aren't under the league's control.

Surface Pros Lose Wireless Connectivity in NFL Championship Game 25 comments

As with other pro sports leagues, the NFL has seized on tablet computers as a mobile communications device allowing coaches and players to review just-captured game video and archived footage involving similar plays and players, as well as to diagram plays. Microsoft paid $400 million to the NFL to make the Surface Pro its official tablet for this season, but some TV announcers were slow to get the memo.

Finally, in the Sunday's AFC championship game (one of two semifinal matches before the Super Bowl) between the New England Patriots and the Denver Broncos, the Surface Pro made it into the limelight... in the wrong way. All of the tablets for the visiting Patriots stopped working for a series of downs (when Denver's offense was on the field), depriving the Patriots coaches the video feeds from the game which they would have reviewed with their players. This time, the CBS announcers correctly identified the malfunctioning tablets (or wireless networks in Denver's Mile High Stadium, as spokesmen for Microsoft countered) as Surface Pros. (The Broncos did not report any problems with their tablets).

The Patriots lost, 20-18. Did the tablets make a difference? Fans of other teams would argue that what goes around comes around.


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Wednesday October 19 2016, @12:19AM

    by GungnirSniper (1671) on Wednesday October 19 2016, @12:19AM (#415935) Journal

    What was our Coach's problem with?

    • (Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday October 19 2016, @12:27AM

      by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Wednesday October 19 2016, @12:27AM (#415937)

      Possibly all three.

      The twitter image says that there are about 15 moving pieces that all have to work. With that complexity something goes wrong approximately every week.

      With pen and paper, it is easy to find a new one if the original get rained on or something.

      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday October 19 2016, @12:50AM

        by frojack (1554) on Wednesday October 19 2016, @12:50AM (#415943) Journal

        I'm guessing it's just the wifi.

        There's nothing to stop some random paid hacker from carrying in a wifi jammer or hacking the physical portion of the stadium network.

        The tablets themselves are quite good but the screen interface is something you don't want to be dealing with in the middle of s game. A random touch and it takes you somewhere else, or tilt it wrong and it rotates the image. If your hands are wet you have no chance. Meat hooks for hands and no training time? Belacheat wouldn't have a chance.

        Most coaches have guys who handle the tablets for them.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 4, Interesting) by captain normal on Wednesday October 19 2016, @01:42AM

          by captain normal (2205) on Wednesday October 19 2016, @01:42AM (#415953)

          So maybe it's just the UI. Same problem I have with my LG Android phone. Touch the wrong spot on the screen or brush the wrong button and Bam! you're off in some totally unrelated site or screen. Maybe it's not just MS, but the whole touch screen obsession the computer builders are hung up on. Still MS software has become more and more unreliable and unusable. Right now I have been waiting over 4 hours for one 4 MB update to download on a 3.5 Mbps connection (it's supposed to be a 5 Mbps cable connection...but that's another big corp sob story. If only I can figure a way to stream without Comcast..).
          AS for MS...by the end of the year all of my computers will be open source.

          --
          When life isn't going right, go left.
          • (Score: 4, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday October 19 2016, @02:29AM

            by frojack (1554) on Wednesday October 19 2016, @02:29AM (#415965) Journal

            I pretty much agree with your assessment of touch UI. Gimmicky and imprecise. Barely sufficient for phones.

            My day job bought me a Microsoft Surface tablet. Nice machine, and quite fast. I sometimes go days without even thinking about touching the screen. Mouse and keyboard and stylus, but the touch screen just isn't convenient.

            --
            No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
          • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @04:56AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @04:56AM (#416010)

            This may be good news--or not.
            There is device driver support for the Surface 3 touchscreen in Linux kernel 4.8. [linux-magazine.com]

            Note: I believe that the Surface 3 Pro is a different animal and is -not- supported.
            I may have extrapolated too far on this point, however.
            I'm feel certain that a MICROS~1 fan will set the record straight.

            So, of the triad of culprits mentioned, it appears that WRT 1 of those, there is a substitute to try.

            .
            Actually, glancing at the previous stories mentioned in TFS, I'm inclined to go with connectivity as the point of failure.
            Snotnose has mentioned a stadium-to-stadium variability.
            I think he nailed it.

            -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

          • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday October 19 2016, @03:43PM

            by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Wednesday October 19 2016, @03:43PM (#416181) Homepage Journal

            I thought my Kyocera phone was a piece of crap until I bought a Samsung tablet. It isn't the hardware, it's the software. The phone often reboots itself when I'm listening to Winamp (they've removed it from Google Play, they say it's temporary, had to use an APK to get it on the tablets). I seldom use the small Samsung, but the bit tablet has locked up twice. Since changing the battery on one is such a PItA I had to let thr battery run down to get it working again.

            Android is the worst Linux I've ever used. I'm sure MS is worse, but I wonder about Apple.

            --
            mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @05:13PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @05:13PM (#416220)

            I have the same problem with the touch pad on my newer work Lenovo laptop. Compared to my MacBook pro's touch pad or my previous work Lenovo, the new Lenovo's is unreliable. I've yet to figure out if it's a Windows 8 issue, hardware issue, or both.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @12:28AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @12:28AM (#415938)

      He's a good ol' american, doesn't take kindly to folks who lie cheat and steal their way to success. That stuff is up to the evil ol' nazimericans.

      I am Prometheus.

    • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by Thexalon on Wednesday October 19 2016, @02:46AM

      by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday October 19 2016, @02:46AM (#415973)

      Maybe he's unable to see the plays the other team's coach is calling? Or maybe the app for determining how inflated a football is doesn't work quite properly?

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @12:44AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @12:44AM (#415942)

    Everything is as it should be.

    Well done Microsoft! Well done, NFL!

    I just wish all those concussions hadn't turned me into a raging asshole. Hell, I can't even blame it on the steroids any more. Sigh.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by richtopia on Wednesday October 19 2016, @01:59AM

    by richtopia (3160) on Wednesday October 19 2016, @01:59AM (#415956) Homepage Journal

    I may not have the expensive model, or the right workflow, but I just cannot use tablets for looking at data. If I needed to sort through pictures/text quickly, a spiral notebook is just so much faster, and intuitive. Not to mention the reliability.

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday October 19 2016, @08:13PM

      by frojack (1554) on Wednesday October 19 2016, @08:13PM (#416321) Journal

      No, a spiral notebook is not faster.
      Not even for hand written notes. Let alone "pictures". How do you get those into a spiral notebook anyway?

      The ability to search documents is why PDFs rule. You can print them if you want to, but keeping them in digital form means you can search the text.
      Putting things into a notebook is where spiral wins. You can add stuff as fast as you can scrawl it. But from there on out, paper is a dead end.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @02:30AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @02:30AM (#415966)

    Associate your product with a dumb and brutal sport. Of course the POS isn't even ready for prime time (which MS product is?).

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Wednesday October 19 2016, @03:49AM

    by Snotnose (1623) on Wednesday October 19 2016, @03:49AM (#415986)

    Different stadiums have different levels of connectivity. It ain't the battery, or the software, or the earpiece in the helmet. It's the bandwidth the vendors assume their devices will have, when in real life you've got A) cheap stadium managers who won't invest in bandwidth; and B) thousands of fans in the stadium on game day using various devices on various frequencies to do various things.

    IMHO, the solution is to let the teams buy their own stuff. If it don't work, dump it (with several stories on the sports page as to the problem). As it is, the NFL takes a licensing fee from the vendor and sticks the teams with the crap the highest bidder puts out. Face it, you never hear the color dude say "awwww jeez, looks like that Microsoft Surface has rebooted". No, you hear rumors, and rumbles, and things like this article.

    --
    Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @04:00AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @04:00AM (#415991)

    ...of these very tablets, and in that video IE crashed right off the bat when they tried to demonstrate smooth scrolling.

    • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Wednesday October 19 2016, @04:49AM

      by dyingtolive (952) on Wednesday October 19 2016, @04:49AM (#416006)

      I can't vouch for that, but I know a couple friends who have them as laptop replacements and they genuinely seem pretty happy with them. Not exactly my style personally, but to each their own.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 19 2016, @11:54AM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 19 2016, @11:54AM (#416085)

        That does abstract the problem to perhaps microsoft laptops, or any laptop, don't belong on the sidelines.

        Yeah I know the advertising contract was to send zillions of dollars to make a sort of potemkin village of "look how tablets are useful for ANY business even sportsball" but sometimes no amount of money can run up against reality.

        I'm not all Amish claiming there's no use for computer in sports finance or sports betting or between games to so some kind of performance analysis and prediction about next weeks game. However during the performance of the game they are probably are only practically useful for relieving stress by throwing them.

        • (Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Wednesday October 19 2016, @05:24PM

          by dyingtolive (952) on Wednesday October 19 2016, @05:24PM (#416230)

          Well, much as I love computers for note taking and getting shit done, there's a time and a place for a white/chalk board or even just pen and paper. If it's something worth saving, you can always take a picture of a board and copy to text later with those neat little surveillance boxes we all have in our pockets. Thus, everything I care about I put on my computer with backups, but everything I REALLY care about, I put down on paper only. As people long before me have stated, paper doesn't crash, only gets shared with people when I want it to be, and can be destroyed forever.

          --
          Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
          • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 19 2016, @05:51PM

            by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 19 2016, @05:51PM (#416247)

            Yeah but even that, function of a coach during the game is head up on a swivel trying to see things.

            He can work on his food shopping list later.

            There is a minimal justification of micromanaging and writing down thirty things along the lines of "remember to have #28 study the playbook for play #8" but that's exactly why they hire offensive and defensive coaches and assistant coaches, someone one, two, three layers lower than him in the organization has already been delegated to that kind of task and his job is to lead/manage the whole thing.

            Aside from the appearances where a guy who's prepped and has it together should make it look easy, there shouldn't be thirty things written down in a list.

            The whole marketing campaign of paid product placement just seems a symptom of the old days of "iPad fever" when all problems were solvable with a tablet. Like, soldering irons are useful tools, no debating that, so I'll pack one in my hiking backpack. Um what?

            I think some of might be a hangover back when tablets were expensive and high status, before every schoolkid seemed to get one. Now its like "look at this heavy 10 inch ankle bracelet I gotta carry I wish I had a little phone like you"

  • (Score: 2) by Bogsnoticus on Wednesday October 19 2016, @06:21AM

    by Bogsnoticus (3982) on Wednesday October 19 2016, @06:21AM (#416044)

    Our executards have been clamouring for them of late. We eventually bought some, but they had to agree to a set of conditions before they could get them.
    - something goes wrong, we only reimage it. We do not reload any apps you purchased.
    - you drop it and break it, it's your personal credit card that pays for the repair
    - only call us for network connectivity issues. Everything else, call Microsoft yourself (home Internet issues does not count as network issues)
    - we're not buying extra chargers. Leave it somewhere, you can go buy a new one.

    Some have complained about the lack of service, but the ones who rely on tech and trust those that have to support it, are more than happy to stick with the fully supported company laptops.

    --
    Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by iamjacksusername on Wednesday October 19 2016, @10:00PM

      by iamjacksusername (1479) on Wednesday October 19 2016, @10:00PM (#416375)

      I am curious why you not supporting Surface? I have gotten a few Surface Books for my clients and gotten it with the business support plan. I have not had any issues getting support but you have to make sure your reseller sells it with the business support SKU and not a consumer SKU - you want "Microsoft Complete
      for Business". That seems to trip up resellers a lot.

      One big thing is that we currently load LTSB on everything with Windows 10 deployed. We just inject the universal apps as needed into the deployment image. That solved the issue of the users asking about store apps... they treat their laptop like a boring piece of company equipment and not something shiny and exciting. Which is the point. As far as drop / broken / lost peripherals, we just treat it like any other laptop and charge the replacement cost back to the department of whomever dropped it.

      • (Score: 2) by Bogsnoticus on Friday October 21 2016, @12:24AM

        by Bogsnoticus (3982) on Friday October 21 2016, @12:24AM (#417001)

        We did a brief run with the SP3, and with how the users treated them as if it was a personal device, instead of a business device, we finally got sick of it and made up the rules.
        90% of our users just wanted a funky tablet for personal use and expect IT to pay for it. They dont whinge when given a locked down laptop, but they whinge when given a locked down tablet.
        Given that use case, why should we support it?

        --
        Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
        • (Score: 2) by iamjacksusername on Friday October 21 2016, @01:51PM

          by iamjacksusername (1479) on Friday October 21 2016, @01:51PM (#417232)

          That's a fair judgement. I remember running into that perception when iPads came out as well. All of a sudden, so many people had an immediate "business need" for one and IT were a bunch of small-minded drones for not saying yes.

          We never jumped onto the Surface early on. I am just beginning to do deployments with Surface Books the past 6 months. We usually lock them down pretty well and they look "laptop-like" enough compared to a tablet-only that most people do not treat them like toys. I have had a few people as about the Microsoft Store and I just give them "it's not supported at this time. What app would you like?". To be fair, all of them have personal iPads already so I presume they get their fill of tablet games on there and their isn't much in the Microsoft Store compared to iOS or Android.

          Reading your experience, I guess I have been pretty lucky so far.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @12:19PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @12:19PM (#416095)

    I had a Windows-tablet. Not a Surface, so I can't say anything about the hardware quality, but an Asus Vivotab running Windows 8.1 (10 wasn't released at the time).

    The only useful app was Internet Explorer. I tried Firefox, remember how they cancelled development because "too few users"? The last version they released wasn't even near a usable state yet, no wonder they didn't have any users.

    The mail app? Didn't work without an Outlook account. Third party mail apps? Forget it, the only ones advertised as such on the store have the words "desktop app" in small print.

    The store? I switched to Android with the F-Droid store, and get a better selection of apps than I had on the Microsoft store.

    After I bought an Android tablet, I tried to give away my old Windows tablet. It took me two years to find someone willing to take it. Even people who wanted a tablet, and didn't care about brand (IOS or Android) refused when I said "Windows tablet".

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @04:56PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 19 2016, @04:56PM (#416209)

    Generic consumer product no good when pushed into a specific industrial use case, when product was set up in a marketing deal and was not selected to meet defined project specifications or to achieve a specific analytic improvement? Color me surprised!
    I wonder if the coaches could actually get away with using real iPads? (The tweet suggests only if the other side also uses them.) And/or how the League will pressure Robert Kraft to get Belichick to shut up?
    But I'm typing this right now on an Asus Eee Slate, was originally on Windows 7and 64GB SWSD. Now 256GB SSD and Windows 10 (with Start10.) Best computer purchase I ever made - wacom digitizer pen equipped, single touch sensitive screen, 2 USB ports (dock keyboard and mouse while I'm at desk.) I'll be sad when it dies. Then again, I did select this particular model based on my use needs for specific purposes, not because Microsoft is paying me to use it.
    And it also proves Germans Love David Hasselhoff.