



I. An Enterprise Win For Microsoft, Windows 8.1

A press release by Microsoft describes:


Delta's flight operations SVP, Capt. Steve Dickson, remarks:



Delta Surface 2


Surface 2


II. Pilots are Reportedly Disgruntled, Employee Accusations Mount




Surface 2







Pilots reportedly wanted an Apple iPad.


The Surface 2 packs a faster Tegra 4 processor from NVIDIA.


Sources: Microsoft, Delta, Apple Insider

Comments     Threshold


RE: The pilots can go f*** themselves
By aliasfox on 10/1/2013 5:30:48 PM , Rating: -1
It's a bit disingenuous to compare a brand new Surface2 against the end-of-lifed iPad 4 in terms of performance, to be honest. If the iPhone 5s is anything to judge by, the iPad that everyone expects to be announced/released this month will be faster than Tegra4 and at least on par with Snapdragon 800, if not Bay Trail.

If they were to go with an MS product, I really feel that this is one of few instances Surface Pro would've made more sense. Assuming they're custom building software, I'd imagine they'd want to use it for the next 10 yrs. Would be a bit of a bummer to have to rewrite/recode if MS decides ARM adoption rates aren't good enough.

RE: The pilots can go f*** themselves
By amanojaku on 10/1/2013 6:18:51 PM , Rating: 1
How is it disingenuous? Delta needs the tablets now. The Surface 2 will be available this month. So far, no iPad 5 release date has been set. So it's only natural for Delta to go with the device it can get its hands on. That's the Surface 2, iPad 4, or some Android tablet.

Surface Pro would not make sense. It's more expensive than any other tablet outside of the 4K resolution tablets. It's also much heavier, and I believe the battery life is shorter.

RE: The pilots can go f*** themselves
By aliasfox on 10/1/13, Rating: -1
RE: The pilots can go f*** themselves
By robertgu on 10/1/2013 7:43:01 PM , Rating: 4
Please stop spreading FUD. If MSFT gives up on Windows RT and ARM; any application Delta creates on these Surface 2 will be using the WinRT runtimes which works on x86 Windows 8.

To reiterate: These runtimes works on Windows RT, Windows 8, and the envisioned future versions of these products. No need recoding needed. If they decide to move to Surface Pro next year, they can load up the programs created for WinRT on their x86 devices without any additional work.

RE: The pilots can go f*** themselves
By aliasfox on 10/2/2013 9:32:16 AM , Rating: 1
I guess I was misinformed then - if you can directly use RT apps on Windows 8 then yes, Surface 2 is fine regardless of Windows on ARM adoption.

As a side note, if you can run RT apps on Intel, what's stopping developers from making the next version of their apps in the WinRT runtime?

By inighthawki on 10/2/2013 12:30:26 PM , Rating: 3

I would say the limiting factor is that apps written with the Windows runtime are restricted to fullscreen store apps only, and it somewhat limits the number of API calls you can make from Win32 in order to more "sandbox" the app for security purposes. Many people do not like these restrictions since it means they cannot develop desktop apps nor distribute their work outside of the windows store.

While a storefront like the windows store or the iOS app store is a great centralized location for finding applications on your particular platform, it is very restrictive of people who do not necessarily care about that. To get it on the store, your app must be certified and digitally signed by Microsoft, which can be a time consuming process (does it cost a fee to submit apps and updates, or is this no longer the case?) Sometimes a developer just wants to throw together a quick app that people can just quickly run, which isn't as feasible in such an environment. Imagine trying to write many of the useful command line tools we have today but being forced to make them into fullscreen applications. Not all apps fit that paradigm very well.

By jRaskell on 10/2/2013 12:45:06 PM , Rating: 2
The decision on which tablet to go with was made quite a while ago. Several months at the very least, possibly as much as a year ago, after which all the details of the deal got hammered out, finally leading up to the public announcement. These large enterprise deals don't even remotely happen overnight.

RE: The pilots can go f*** themselves
By GotThumbs on 10/2/2013 12:03:12 AM , Rating: 3
Surface Pro runs REAL programs and not just "APPS", so one is not limited as you are with IProducts and IOS7.

The new Intel Haswell CPU is more efficient than those in the Surface Pro gen 1 models.

The Surface Pro II DOES make sense if you want greater options.

Battery life will be better and you can even add the new powered keyboard which adds even more battery supply.

RE: The pilots can go f*** themselves
By amanojaku on 10/2/2013 12:38:55 AM , Rating: 5
Surface 2 is $450. Surface Pro 2 is $900. I don't think Delta is interested in doubling its equipment costs. Besides, it's not like pilots need a desktop computer in the cockpit. They're replacing MANUALS. Apps are already more powerful than a stack of paper.

And what is the difference between an app and an application? If it does what you want, it's the same thing. Clearly, Delta performed a trial and determined apps can do what they want. All that's really missing is the ability to run existing x86 code, which the paper manuals can't do, either.

One of the goals is to have a light tablet. Surface Pro 2 is heavier than Surface 2 by 25%. Adding the Power Cover will bump up battery life from five hours to 10, but the cost will be extra weight and an additional $200. It's also not available until 2014. Surface 2 reaches 10 hours without a cover.

Stop assuming your needs are equal to that of Delta's.

RE: The pilots can go f*** themselves
By Manch on 10/4/2013 5:49:53 PM , Rating: 2
You hit the nail on the head with your last bit "Stop assuming your needs are equal to that of Delta's."

Saving 1.2mil by eliminating the paper. 7.5 million sheets is about 75000lbs. 1 standard US sheet is 1/100th Lb. Assuming the 1.2mil savings is the weight diff between paper bag and tablet it's costing Delta is a little bit over $13.11 a lb every year. If all 11000 pilots receive a surface 2 at 1.5lbs it will cost them only $216,315.00. A Surface Pro 2 @ 2lbs will cost them 288,420.00 of fuel annually. That's a difference of $72,105.00 in fuel. Not a a lot relatively compared to the savings from eliminating paper but ~$72K plus the saving from not buying the pro add up. Delta obviously doesn't pay retail but 11000 Surface 2's at retail cost $4.9 mil. Surface Pros would double that.

Also this electronic flight bag is a work device. Delta will lock them down very much like corporations and the Gov do with work phones/laptops. One thing MS excels at is enterprise services and applications. MS can provide both the front end and the back end of a system. This is something Apple simply cannot compete with. There are enterprise applications for Apple products and some of them are very nice but they have to play with....Windows!

Lastly, these are not a standalone system. These will be integrated into Deltas IT infrastructure. Another advantage of electronic flight bag is changes can be made on the fly vs waiting for a new copy or page corrections to be inserted. Also the pilots will be able to upload what they are doing on the fly as well and you can bet your @$$ they will be using the metrics to identify problems and what not.

So yeah, you may not be able to play the latest iGame but should be pretty awesome for what they need it to do.

By chripuck on 10/2/2013 4:34:06 PM , Rating: 4
Options? It's Delta, they probably want it to do email and run the custom software they'll have written for it. Buying extra specs for the sake of extra specs is idiotic.

RE: The pilots can go f*** themselves
By Micronite on 10/1/2013 7:03:32 PM , Rating: 5
That's the beauty of coding for Win8/RT. As long as you're coding in .NET, your code should be cross-compatible and it won't matter what the hardware looks like in the next 10 yrs.

RE: The pilots can go f*** themselves
By ResStellarum on 10/1/13, Rating: -1
By amanojaku on 10/1/2013 10:52:42 PM , Rating: 2
If you're looking for a platform-independent SDK, my guess is that QT Framework is at or near the top of the list. It does pretty much everything.

Desktop Platforms

Windows (XP, Vista, 7, 8)
Linux/X11 (GNU, Linux, FreeBSD, HP-UX, Solaris, AIX, etc...)
Mac OS X

Embedded platforms

Embedded Linux (DirectFB, EGLFS, KMS, and Wayland)
Windows Embedded (Compact and Standard)
Real-Time Operating Systems, such as QNX, VxWorks and INTEGRITY

Mobile platforms

Windows 8 (WinRT)
BlackBerry 10

By inighthawki on 10/2/2013 1:46:52 AM , Rating: 4
That depends, are you referring to using the native API for Linux? In which case you're targeting cross-platform, but only a single architecture.

.NET allows you to target any architecture running windows, so it's somewhat of an orthogonal direction, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with developing for the most widely used platform at the time being. It's not like it's morally wrong to not develop something on closed or proprietary platforms.

If you wanted to be truly cross platform and cross architecture, you can try to target Java or some scripting languages, but then you lose many low level optimizations, so it may only make sense if your application is not real-time or performance sensitive.

Point being, there is no one single answer to everything. Writing code for free/open platforms doesn't solve every problem, and it doesn't make you any better than anyone else. In fact, I believe that just thinking so makes you a significantly worse programmer as it's showing that you don't understand these fundamental concepts.

RE: The pilots can go f*** themselves
By osalcido on 10/2/2013 1:59:54 AM , Rating: 2
That's not true.. Windows RT does not run full blown .NET. It's comparable to mobile Java framework. You have to specifically make a Metro-style app for it to run in RT

By inighthawki on 10/2/2013 12:21:17 PM , Rating: 3
I think you're confusing concepts here. Windows RT contains the full .NET package, and is not at all comparable to the mobile Java framework. The reason it is limited to metro only is because Microsoft enforces a restriction on what can run on RT for security purposes. An app cannot run unless it is signed with a digital certificate by Microsoft, which they only do on Store apps. If you jailbreak the device or find a way to sign the apps, then you can compile and run anything you want, including C++ code compiled directly for ARM.

By robertgu on 10/1/2013 7:34:36 PM , Rating: 2
In reference to choosing Surface Pro over Surface 2 cause you believe the code would have to be rewritten if ARM adoption isn't good enough. That is not an issue. Windows Store Apps are coded in WinRT which is a runtime used in BOTH Windows RT and Windows 8 and will be the runtime for all Windows products for the foreseeable future.

By Jeffk464 on 10/1/2013 7:40:51 PM , Rating: 2

Maybe MS gave them a really good deal to try and clear out their supply of RT tablets.

