Delta Airlines to Give Pilots Microsoft Surface 2 Tablets

[exfileme]

Delta is now testing the use of Surface 2 tablets in Boeing 757 and Boeing 767 planes.

Delta Airlines to Give Pilots Microsoft Surface 2 Tablets : Read more

 

[deftonian]

Excuse me, but all electronic devices must be turned off during takeoff and landing. DON'T LET ME CATCH YOU CAPTAIN!

;-)

 

[warezme]

The RT..., they can keep it.

 

[ethanolson]

Hahaha... so Microsoft is on its way to having the last laugh. Eventually, what is used in work will make it into the homes of consumers all over again like it did with PCs. So Microsoft's tablets running Windows 8.1 might be the thing to bridge the work/home gap for this generation.

Yeah... I've recently become a bit of a fanboy.

 

[sean1357]

Maybe Delta Air got better deal with Microsoft? Buy One, Get One Free.... who knows...

 

[michael908]

My friend from school has the first generation surface and it really is a good tablet. For productivity and being able to actually use excel and word properly on a tablet is amazing. Rt is neutered windows but still much better than ios and Android.

 

[tntom]

They could of used all those extra Generation 1 tablets laying around. On a serious note I think this is a good match. All the reasons that keep me from buying it are why it is a good match to an airline. Microsoft is filling in the niche that Blackberry could have. The 'Windows Mobile 8' as it should have been called, has a straight forward no nonsense UI and is locked down enough to avoid too much abuse.

 

[jcluthe]

Maybe this will keep the pilots awake....http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/exhausted-pilots-sleeping-cockpit-20389798

 

[back_by_demand]

MS has deep enough pockets and patience, alongside IBM they play the long game very well. 1st Gen Surface sells few, 2nd Gen Surface will sell more, 3rd Gen Surface will own the market.

 

[Chris DeLong]

So Microsoft successfully sold 11,000 units. Just a few more million to go...good luck with that.

 

[knightmike]

C-130 pilot here. We were issued the iPads not too long ago for the same reason. I must say, it's so much better than lugging around the manual. Plus, it's a lot easier to keep updated.

 

[stevejnb]

While I think your progression of marketshare is *wildly* optimistic Back, and products like the Zune line show that MS is hardly infallible at the "long game," you are not wrong in your sentiment in general. An example of an astounding success in this area would be the XBOX with the first console being a five-year-plan sacrificial lamb to build mindshare with the second sweeping in to become a viable competitor. I would not be surprised if the Surface brand is a similar endeavour, planning to "long game" Windows into the mobile sphere. So far, the ecosystem improved dramatically over the course of the first Surface's lifetime (only slightly as a result of the Surface itself, though the Surface brand will hugely benefit).

Heck, almost daily in classes and doing research I have someone comment on my "Surface" - which they oddly sometimes do when I'm using my Acer Iconia W700 too - and ask me how it is. A lot of people know what the Surface brand is now and when they go in to buy their next iPad, they may well give it a try. In virtue of it being a well designed product, wouldn't surprise me if more than a few brought them home. When I got my Surface - about a month after the price drop to $350 - the fellow who sold it to me told me they were selling their display case (about 40 units) out every three days. Hardly decisive market data, but I was surprised to hear that about a product which I'd heard next to nothing positive about on the web. And heck, my Surface isn't even the only one I see around the university...

I don't know if it will ever be a market leader, but I am getting early inklings that the Surface brand is growing, not shrinking. We'll see what the post-holiday sales numbers say.

 

[sean1357]

@back_by_demand

It isn't simple like that... Not like between Microsoft and Netscape.... that was along time ago...

Now, you are talking about Apple, Google, and Amazon....If Microsoft wants to stay in the race... MS has to build solid, good, and better price to other competitors out there...

 

[shin0bi272]

Why cant we give school kids tablets instead? Who wants to lug around 10 different books plus notebooks and handouts from the teacher in the 21st century? Just to keep the textbook companies from going out of business? !meht kcuF

 

[stevejnb]

Shinobi, tablets are a *really* new technology on the consumer which not many people - let alone teachers - are proficient at using. Unless you're proposing Microsoft tablets, most of those teachers are probably largely unfamiliar with the operating system as well, and even with Windows most of the elementary and highschool teachers I know are the types who thought the CD tray was a drink holder just a few years ago. This is one more *huge* hassle for a teacher to try and coordinate and troubleshoot, having a classroom full of people using digital devices. A book has the virtue of being very simple - you open, you read, and you write.

I teach classes and am reasonably computer savvy... But I know some academics who are now trying to use more digital formats for papers and articles they want students to read and a lot of them have tremendous trouble trying to work out technical kinks because one person can't get an article or you need accounts for this or that site or blah blah blah, and the first ten minutes of their classes turn into a troubleshooting session.

it will happen, but right now things are not dependable enough for this to really make it worthwhile in my eyes. A hidden fee is having tech support available to deal with tablet troubles in schools too, and schools are tight enough on budget as is.

 

[knightmike]

I'm not sure they want students to have a device that allows them to search for an answer. Apparently, answering questions by scanning the chapter is a useful skill.

 

[f-14]

have they been lighting tested yet? an air plane in a thunderstorm is not unheard of, and problems with air planes in thunderstorms has caused high body counts and missing planes. while it might suck to look thru a 300 page manual in the dark it's even worse to not have a manual at all because a static charge or electrical impulse knocked it out.

the benefit to these is a faster search to the section that applies to your problem!

 

[TeraMedia]

I can just see the headlines now:

Syrian Electronic Army Hacks Delta Airlines Pilot Handbook - All Airplanes Crash Land on National Mall

Not likely, of course, but these devices do create another attack surface (no pun intended). If I were in charge of Delta, I'd be sure to find a way to lock these things down before I'd allow them in the cockpit. You know the pilots are going to let their kids play on them, and you know they're going to be used for non-work activities (hotel room p0rn during layovers?), no matter how stern the contract each pilot signs to get one.

 

[WyomingKnott]

I remember when fighter pilots were given programmable Texas Instruments calculators for this purpose, back in the early 80's. I had the same calculator and had to have it swapped three times before I got one that worked for more than a month.

Perhaps they should carry spares, just in case.

 

[DryCreamer]

I love my Windows tablet!

Dry

 

[knightmike]

A cargo plane is flying along, doing its cargo plane thing, when a fighter jet comes up alongside.
The fighter jock decides to poke some fun at the pilot who's forced to fly such an ungainly vessel.
"My plane's so much more advanced than yours. Watch this" says the jock, as he proceeds to do loop-de-loops, barrel rolls, corkscrews, and all manner of fast-paced aerial acrobatics.
"Very impressive," responds the cargo pilot. "But that's nothing, watch this." For a half hour the large craft simply plods along straight as an arrow, not even so much as dipping the wings.
After a while, the cargo pilot comes back on the radio and says "So, what'd you think?"
Jock: "What d'you mean? You didn't do anything. You just flew straight for a while."
Cargo: "Oh no, that wasn't all. I got up, stretched my legs, got some coffee, went to the bathroom..."