The July 19 outage due to a CrowdStrike update caused Delta Air Lines to lose an estimated $350 million to $500 million, with the company forced to hand out reimbursements after almost 7,000 flights were canceled. With losses mounting to the tune of around half a billion dollars, the U.S. airlines’ CEO Ed Bastian had no sympathy for Microsoft when he harshly criticized the software giant for the outage while also praising Apple when drawing up a comparison.
Chief Executive also says that Microsoft is the ‘most fragile platform’ when asked about a future business relationship
In an interview with CNBC, Bastion states that Delta Air Lines’ 40,000 servers crashed, and teams had to physically touch and reset everything in an attempt to resume operations. There were blue screen errors that were visible at airports days after the crash, with Delta forced to cancel 5,000 flights in a single day. The reimbursements that mounted to 176,000, coupled with the mammoth-sized losses the company had to deal with meant that Bastion had no soft corner for Microsoft.
When asked about a continuing relationship with the technology giant after the crash, the Chief Executive responded that it is ‘probably the most fragile platform’ and later asked, ‘When was the last time you heard of a big outage at Apple?’ Bastion strongly advised that technology companies might be building for the future, but they must ensure that they ‘fortify the current.’ As reported by The Verge, the only compensation offered to Delta Air Lines from Microsoft and CrowdStrike was free consulting advice, but the company is not backing down from a fight, as it has sought the services of renowned attorney David Boies to seek damages.
Bastion also aimed at CrowdStrike’s deployment practices, saying that if such companies have access to Delta Air Lines’ ecosystem, it is imperative that they perform consistent tests and not come up with an excuse when everything stops working all of a sudden. As for how Apple manages to avoid outages like this, it has restricted third-party developers from gaining access to the macOS kernel. However, Microsoft has said it cannot legally ‘wall off’ its operating system like Apple because of an understanding reached with the European Commission.
News Source: CNBC
About the author: Omar Sohail is a reporter and analyst for Wccftech's mobile section, specializing in the technology and business of the mobile industry. His expertise lies in the intricate hardware supply chain, covering developments in semiconductor manufacturing, chip lithography, and camera sensor technology.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
