Microsoft soars through the sky — FAA authorizes Surface 2 for pilot use
FAA authorizes Surface 2 for pilot use — Traveling on an airplane used to be quite the archaic experience. Sure, soaring above the clouds is great, but for many, using electronic devices for things like Flappy Bird is much more exciting.
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft's Surface 2 just picked up a credential no ad campaign can buy: confirmed FAA authorization for pilot use during flights, clearing the tablet for actual cockpit work rather than passenger-seat entertainment. For a product line whose software is being criticized — even in the same-day commentary — over Windows 8.1 Update 1 trying to satisfy too many audiences at once, a safety-relevant certification is precisely the kind of enterprise differentiation that cuts through the noise.
There is also a long runway behind this moment: Microsoft's own people were blogging from airline cabins back in 2006 (filed mid-flight), and the story's pickup across WinBeta shows the enthusiast press treating cockpit approval as a legitimacy marker for Surface, not a footnote.
First-order effects
- Pilots can now fly with Surface 2 as approved equipment, handing Microsoft a regulator-endorsed use case to pitch to airlines and corporate flight departments.
- Carriers and flight operators face immediate policy decisions on provisioning and supporting the device, since individual pilots can now request it on the job.
Second-order effects
- Competing tablet makers now have an incentive to pursue equivalent FAA authorization, making cockpit certification a line item in enterprise tablet procurement rather than a novelty.
- Certification lets Microsoft anchor Surface 2 pricing against purpose-built aviation equipment instead of competing purely in the crowded consumer tablet bracket where it already fields cheaper hardware like the $329 ASUS VivoTab Note 8.
Third-order effects
- Regulators such as the FAA become de facto gatekeepers deciding which mass-market devices may enter safety-critical workflows — a certification moat that outlasts annual spec cycles.
- If consumer tablets keep winning operational approvals, cockpit computing drifts toward commodity certified hardware plus approved software, pressuring traditional dedicated avionics suppliers.
The trend: Consumer tablets are crossing from entertainment devices into regulator-certified operational tools, with agencies like the FAA acting as the gate that turns hardware approvals into enterprise sales wedges.