Delta CEO calls Microsoft 'fragile' and lauds Apple

Delta's CEO has decried Microsoft as a particularly vulnerable platform while implying Apple is much more sound.

When a faulty update crippled the internet in mid-July, causing everything from point-of-purchase to flight management to grind to a halt, many companies began looking for someone to blame. And that blame largely fell on Microsoft and security firm CrowdStrke.

Some of the loudest affected companies were flight companies, such as American Airlines, United, and Delta, who needed to ground flights until their systems came back online.

In a new interview on CNBC's 'Squawk Box', Delta CEO Ed Bastian has spoken out against Microsoft while simultaneously praising Apple. When asked if Delta would reconsider how it used Microsoft in the future, Bastian had this to say:

"We have to. My sense is [Microsoft is] probably the most fragile platform within that space... When was the last time you heard about a big outage at Apple?"

When the interviewer pressed Bastian to consider if the reason Apple hasn't had an outage like this is because it's not as widely utilized, the CEO ducked the question entirely.

Delta is currently looking to sue both Microsoft and CrowdStrike to recoup its alleged $500 million profit loss due to technical problems.

Delta has integrated some Apple products into various parts of its business, either directly or indirectly. Delta was the first airline to use Apple's business chat to help customers.

In 2021, Delta Air Lines provided its pilots with an upgraded electronic flight bag, switching over to the 5G-equipped iPad Pro.

In December 2023, a TikToker discovered that a newer Delta plane lets you directly connect your AirPods — or any Bluetooth headphones — to the in-flight entertainment system.

29 Comments

baconstang 1153 comments · 10 Years

About 3 months ago

Welcome to the party...

eriamjh 1760 comments · 17 Years

Hello, Pot? This is Kettle.

Any airline calling Microsoft "fragile" needs to look at their own horrible financial performance and overall system "fragility"over the decades since the inception of flight.

Isn't every airline one economic blip from bankruptcy? Delta has already been there (2005).

I'm not saying he isn't wrong. Please, sue M$ over this. They'll just blame Cloudstrike.

kellie 63 comments · 1 Year

The primary cause of the outage was due to Crowdstrike shipping a faulty malware template that either wasn’t tested or was accidentally shipped out unknowingly

the secondary cause is every Crowdstrike customer who blindly allowed the update to occur without doing their own testing and validation. Sure it would be nice to totally trust the vendor, but they don’t suffer the consequences.

The third cause of the failure was Microsoft allowing Crowdstrike to run in kernel mode. So when Crowdstrike choked, it brought down each and every PC. A simple reboot would not fix the problem.

The fourth cause of the problem is EU regulators who told Microsoft that if they were going to force applications vendors to use a Microsoft API to access the kernel, that would be considered anti-competitive. So Microsoft had no choice but to allow Crowdstrike unprotected access to the kernel. Apple is allowed to control access to its kernel.

The Delta CEO is criticizing Microsoft purely to try and squeeze money out of Microsoft. The CEO is clueless about Windows vs Mac. He’s just trying to shake down Microsoft. The Delta CEO needs to ask the Delta CIO why he allowed Crowdstrike updates to occur without validation and testing. Trust but verify as Ronald Regan used to say about the Russians.

Stabitha_Christie 569 comments · 3 Years

kellie said:

The primary cause of the outage was due to Crowdstrike shipping a faulty malware template that either wasn’t tested or was accidentally shipped out unknowingly

the secondary cause is every Crowdstrike customer who blindly allowed the update to occur without doing their own testing and validation. Sure it would be nice to totally trust the vendor, but they don’t suffer the consequences.
The third cause of the failure was Microsoft allowing Crowdstrike to run in kernel mode. So when Crowdstrike choked, it brought down each and every PC. A simple reboot would not fix the problem.

The fourth cause of the problem is EU regulators who told Microsoft that if they were going to force applications vendors to use a Microsoft API to access the kernel, that would be considered anti-competitive. So Microsoft had no choice but to allow Crowdstrike unprotected access to the kernel. Apple is allowed to control access to its kernel.

The Delta CEO is criticizing Microsoft purely to try and squeeze money out of Microsoft. The CEO is clueless about Windows vs Mac. He’s just trying to shake down Microsoft. The Delta CEO needs to ask the Delta CIO why he allowed Crowdstrike updates to occur without validation and testing. Trust but verify as Ronald Regan used to say about the Russians.

The EU didn’t force Microsoft to do anything. The EU had complaints from security software vendors and asked Microsoft to respond. Microsoft responded with a solution a solution that provided security vendors the ability to live patch the Windows kernel. It was Microsoft’s solution and it was completely voluntary. That Microsoft is trying to blame the EU is just completely dishonest on their part.

That AppleInsider repeated Microsoft’s talking points without validating the claims was just sloppy. Paul Thurrott, a long time proponent of Windows and Microsoft, actually did work to validate the claim and called it for the BS it was. That a Microsoft fan put in more effort than AI is just embarrassing.

danox 3393 comments · 11 Years

Apple kicked third parties out of the OS Kernel Microsoft can do the same if they grow a backbone, what the Delta CEO said is a hint to Apple that it must start looking at leveraging Apple Silicon computers in small and medium sized businesses in some of the back of house computing solutions ie... servers/software the time is coming like right now.

Microsoft is at the top of the Windows Azure inertia pyramid, and is responsible but notice in typical IT Geek Boy fashion Microsoft blamed others for their incompetence. Recall and the Qualcomm SOC/Windows emulation for third time fiasco is theirs too.

Heard and seen it all before at the company I worked for over the years when Windows IT was involved.