Daniel Eran Dilger
Microsoft Surface Pro tablets stopped working on the sidelines of a major U.S. football game today, causing a spectacular black eye for the struggling product just as its maker was performing an advertising blitz for the hybrid tablet device integrated into the game itself.
"They're having some trouble with their Microsoft Surface tablets," announced CBS reporter Evan Washburn. "That last defensive possession the Patriots' coaches did not have access to those tablets to show pictures to their players. NFL officials have been working at it. Some of those tablets are back in use but not all of them. A lot of frustration that they didn't have them on that last possession."
On Twitter, reporter Sean Jensen posted the above image, stating "Second time this season I've personally heard the @Microsoft tablet getting crushed during an #NFL game."
The National Football League playoff game between the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots determined the winner of the American Football Conference to be sent to the Super Bowl.
Microsoft had been relentlessly advertising Surface tablets during the game, and ensured that the device was visible by packaging them in bright blue covers emblazoned with Microsoft Surface branding.
Despite having paid the NFL at least $400 million back in 2013 for exclusive branding rights to the mobile computers used on the sidelines to enable teams to review plays, game commentators have continued to refer to the devices as "iPads."
Microsoft's increasingly strident efforts clarify that its product is not just a generic "iPad" backfired when the Surface-based system failed for the Patriots, frustrating the team and creating a problem that became central to the game's story.
Microsoft was quick to blame network issues, although only the Patriot's side experienced issues with them during the game. The Patriots ultimately lost to the Broncos by a narrow margin of 18-20.
"Those tablets always malfunction"
This isn't the first time that Microsoft's heavy-handed sponsorship deal to thrust Surface into the public consciousness via televised football games has generated less than ideal publicity. A series of viral videos on Twitter depict players throwing or banging the device in frustration.
UPDATE: #Patriots Tablets are working again after Johnny demonstrates the correct way to fix them. https://t.co/bK9XGbuRcg
— Sports Nation Ohio (@SN_Ohio) January 24, 2016
"Those tablets always malfunction" tweeted Geoff Schwartz of the New York Giants.
Surface has been an embarrassing commercial failure for Microsoft, even before considering the company's dubious marking efforts or its questionable value.
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218 Comments
While I can understand bashing the competition... unfortunately, this issue can't be blamed on the Microsoft Surface (or Microsoft at all). As has been reported on (and confirmed by) the NFL before, the issue has nothing to do with the Surface. Rather, it's the NFL's servers and application that went down (hence why it goes down across multiple teams at the same time). The tablet runs an application that connects to NFL servers and pulls in data including pictures, replay information, etc. It is that system that has been going down recently. To be honest, while Microsoft has paid a large sum of money for their tablets to be shown and used, the entire process is technically platform agnostic. They can run the application on anything. Unfortunately, it wouldn't matter which tablet they chose in these cases... if their servers are down, then there is nothing that can be done.
The whole thing seems like a failure when coaches and players are just staring at screens for a promoted shot with almost no interaction with the tablet
"Struggling product" Who wrote this? Surface products are selling like hotcakes. Your example of how Surface failed was Surface RT. Yes, RT was an objective failure, however the x86 implementations of Surface have been resounding commercial successes. The fact that you use this as an example shows that you are either hideously biased, or don't know what you're writing about. Plus you're going to quote NFL players and coaches on technology issues? What do they know? If it's a network or server issue the same thing would happen with any device. If you're not going to be objective or knowledgeable, don't be a journalist.