Delta will distribute Microsoft Surface 2 tablets to its pilots and not Nokia’s “Sirius” tablet as originally planned. The move comes in the wake of a deal to distribute Nokia Lumia 820 smart phones to nearly 19,000 flight attendants.
Note to self: Never fly Delta.
Manageability for iOS has come a long way but in extremely large and distributed businesses it’s still hard to beat Active Directory and Microsoft software distribution
Nothing like the BSOD at 30,000 feet
And while I’ve never used a Surface 2, I have used a crappy little ASUS rough equivalent.
Apart from ASUS build quality on a cheap device, it was fine, if you needed to run Windows software on a tablet (which is why they’re not selling… you don’t, mostly).
I suspect it’ll be perfectly fine for Delta’s specific needs.
Agreed, Microsoft still has very strong enterprise credentials. For flipping through a bunch of flight manual PDFs and running some internal apps, it should be just fine.
That being said, I hate flying Delta for many other reasons.
Agreed. There is a reason the onboard computers aren’t running Windows.
That’s not a fair thing to lob at Windows, because Apple would never certify OS X or iOS for such a use either, and I say that as a Mac user.
All my flight decisions rest solely on which tablets/smartphones the pilots and staff are using. Actual quality of service be damned.
/s
A lot of pilots use the iPad for the great aviation apps that are available on that platform only. I would guess they will still take their iPads with them.
One more reason not to fly Delta.
I agree that it is unfair. I was saying it more in jest than seriousness.
FINALLY pilots will be able to use Microsoft Office at 30,000 feet!
With Lumias in hand, this only makes sense. It’d be weird to make them use two different ecosystems.
There’s an easy explanation for why Delta has decided to switch from using the iPad to the Surface 2: Cost.
We all know that Apple doesn’t move much when it comes to discounting any of their products. On the other hand, Microsoft has made recent headlines regarding how much money they’ve been losing on the Surface products, and most likely took a hair cut on their upcoming Surface 2 distribution to Delta.