The Technology Life

Judging from the audience’s positive reaction, Sprint Nextel CEO Dan Hesse hit the nail on the head Monday when he presented on wireless technology in the health care industry. He couldn’t have chosen a riper industry. Even beyond all the political noise, this is an industry in transformation. Pressure? You got it–cost cutting and a huge push to increase the quality of care for starters.

Hesse says one key to all of this is wireless. He delivered his keynote address to the HIMSS (Health Information and Management Systems Society) annual conference in Atlanta.

The ways that healthcare providers are using wireless to increase efficiency and better manage costs, Hesse told his audience, are achieving “some truly remarkable, transformative advancements in delivering faster, better patient care.”

He pointed to a slew of specific examples and noted caregivers are using smartphones equipped with medical applications, secure access to lab results, x-rays, vital signs, drug-to-drug interactions, and other important medical records. He said the trends point to a rising use of wireless data transactions and a growing dependence on the capacity that 4G technology delivers.

It’s fascinating to consider how wireless, particularly 4G, could transform the healthcare business. Information exchanges are becoming increasingly data-heavy – through applications such as streaming video, virtual office visits, radiologic image transmission, virtual collaboration, and other varied on-demand applications. That’s where 4G comes in; it has the bandwidth to handle the load and make these exchanges happen from almost anywhere.

Hesse described the changes that wireless is bringing and will continue to bring to healthcare as an “historic opportunity,” and it’s true. With the ability to access information easily and quickly, and have it available anywhere, the delivery of healthcare services makes more efficient use of providers’ time and resources, achieving the twin goals of lower costs and the highest-quality care.

The potential is huge. As one example Network World points out, ” A study released last summer by ABI Research projected that there will be approximately 15 million wireless telehealth sensors and devices in use by 2012, or more than double the number of wireless telehealth systems in use today. ABI says that these systems will be used primarily to “monitor and track the status of patients with chronic conditions” so that their providers can detect early warning signs before they become dangerous.

For a full written transcript of Dan Hesse’s keynote, visit HIMSS keynote.

Editor's other blog entries

Email

Bookmark ShareThis

Digg

Tweet This

Subscribe

Tags: 4G, Bandwidth, Dan Hesse, healthcare, HIMSS, telehealth, telemedicine

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 10:17 pm and is filed under IP networking, News & Event, cloud computing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Just prior to the Consumer Electronics Show, I was asked to participate in a collaborative mobile trends effort. The results are out and I’m honored to be in such good company — over four dozen people participated and I’m not at all shy to say that most of them are far smarter than me. Each of us was asked to identify and briefly describe what mobile trends we envision for the next 10 years. Having read through the listing, there are some expected overlaps, but there’s also many unique aspects as well.

The slide show is freely available to view or download, so if you’re interested in hearing about mobile in the next 10 years, I highly recommend a peek. Thanks for asking me to take part, Rudy!

Related GigaOm Pro Research: “10 Mobile Predictions for 2010“

Read our latest market research report, "Are You Ready for the TV Widget Revolution." Only at GigaOM Pro.

« Inside Looking Out: An Executive View on Enterprise Mobility with Jim Hemmer | Main | Inside Looking Out: An Executive View on Enterprise Mobility with Willie Jow »

16 July 2009

Is The Cloud The Ultimate Platform for Enterprise Mobility?

Now back from my brief trip to the West Coast, I am done digging myself out of what was an impressive (depressing?) amount of things that piled up on me in just two days.

As you know, Twitter has become an impressive tool for real-time knowledge (or almost anything else for that matter)sharing.  I saw a tweet today from the people at InformationWeek that caught my eye: Web May Be Ultimate Mobile Platform.  Needless to say, it made me think about the potential impact on enterprise mobility.  I'm talking Mobile Cloud Computing.

Now, this is not of course the first time I think about the cloud and its impact on enterprise mobility.  In the past, I've spoken about how I think the cloud makes enterprise mobility compelling.  Now, there's a conference called MobileBeat 2009 taking place today in San Francisco.  Many industry heavyweights are there, including Microsoft, Palm, Nokia, and Google (among others) and they are all talking about the impact of The Web and HTML 5 on mobile platforms.

Back in February, I penned a little article that asked if one should care about the mobile platform.  I think that the major players are coming to see how The Cloud does in many respects level the playing field.  In fact, even from an enterprise perspective, it becomes less a question of which device you prefer, but instead which BROWSER works best for you.  Heck, even today, RIM announced that its new browser would support tabbed browsing (it's about time if you ask me).

So this has, in my opinion, some pretty big implications on device and application management.  While there will always be a need for baseline device management (especially if you use direct access email), but what if (almost) no data is on the device because all the applications you are using are in The Cloud?   Application Management becomes all but moot.  You won't need to worry about pushing applications out to employees and making sure they get all the latest updates.  You won't need either to (necessarily) create applications that work on a specific smartphone platform...instead, you'll need to make sure it works best with the popular browsers.  Hmm, sounds like the Browser Wars of yore.

What does increase in complexity is device SECURITY.  Why?  It's all about where the data that you will be accessing will reside.  With HTML 5, you'll be able to cache data temporarily on the device should you lose coverage.  That's great, except for the fact that it creates a real threat in terms of data breaches.  Device encryption becomes critical.  So does authorization and authentication in terms of being able to access the data.  Depending on the setup, VPNs may be necessary. And last, but certainly not least, you need remote wipe capabilities.  Otherwise, can you imagine what would happen?  I don't even want to begin to think about it...it would be like TJX all over again.

So maybe the enterprise's mobile security needs - especially remote wipe and lock - make device management all the more critical.  It becomes critical not in terms of the ever increasing heterogeneous device environments found in enterprises, but rather for what a device management solution can do from a security perspective.

Hmmm....

You might also like:

• What Apple Could Do To Make The iPhone Enterprise Mobility Ready
• My Five Predictions for Enterprise Mobility in 2009
• Do You Care About The OS On Your Device?
• How Cloud Computing Makes Enterprise Mobility Compelling

LinkWithin

Posted at 17:30 | Permalink

Technorati Tags: device management, mobile cloud computing, mobile security

Digg This | Save to del.icio.us | Tweet This!'); Tweet This!

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00e008d27b9388340115711ae339970c

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Is The Cloud The Ultimate Platform for Enterprise Mobility?:

Comments

Andrew Borg said...

I totally agree that Web delivery is the right model for enterprise mobility; however, I don't agree that the browser will be the delivery vehicle. Web scraping into a targeted 'app' for UI and interaction, and subsequently synchronization back to the cloud may be more likely... we can discuss over coffee next time ;-)

Reply 16 July 2009 at 18:41

Philippe said...

Good point Andrew....except for the fact that HTML 5 will completely blur the line between having a UI via a browser or from a rich application. Yes, something else for us to debate over coffee ;-)

Reply 17 July 2009 at 08:30

Comment below or sign in with TypePad Facebook Twitter and more...

View the entire comment thread.

Google is an amazing company, even more so from the inside. To the outside world Google is just search. But Google has made three big bets on the future of computing; Chrome (browser), Google Apps (cloud), and Android (mobile) that will change everything. VentureBeat interviewed me yesterday about my first month at Google.

Vibe – Google is a high energy environment. Lots of smart people with big ideas. Everything is data driven. Decisions are made based on data that has been analyzed, and going forward everything is monitored and measured based on the data. Opinions and “gut feel” are considered too, but in the end, results are measured by data. Even things like travel expense caps for airfares and hotels are data driven. They keep track of every trip taken and the actual costs for airfares and hotels, then establish the caps based on the data.

The Google campus is beautiful, funky, and efficient. There are bicycles everywhere for people to use to get between buildings. In some ways it feels like a college campus, but the intensity level is much higher. Most people sit in open cubes with four or more people in a pod. Offices with doors typically have 2 or 3 people in them. People work in groups and there is a real sense of teamwork everywhere you look.

Perks – Free breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the gourmet cafes in each building. The food is awesome!! The 401K match is 50% of your contribution up to $8,250. Health plan is pretty good, but not as good as Microsoft’s plan. MSFT pays for everything, no co-pays, no deductibles. Google really caters to employees needs. Onsite dry cleaning service, car washes, Oil changes, ATM, Fitness Centers, Haircuts, Massage, and Concierge services.

Meetings - 30 minutes is the standard, start on time and end early if possible. Video Conferences are pretty standard since the company is geographically distributed. Nearly every conference room has video conference equipment. Everyone uses Google Docs to capture meeting notes, a true example of real time collaboration.

Gmail – The Gmail you all use as consumers is the same email all Google employees use internally. Threaded conversations are a HUGE time saver and help keep things organized. I didn’t really appreciate that feature until my departure from Microsoft when my email inbox was flooded with messages many with the same subject line. Gmail made it easy to manage. Links, not attachments, also ensure that you are always working with the latest version of a file. No more searching for the email with the attachment and then making sure it is the latest version with up to date changes. Offline Gmail makes all your email and attachments available offline. Great for airplanes or travel.

The future of computing – I think Google has made three big bets on the future of computing; Chrome (browser), Google Apps (cloud), and Android (mobile). The trends are pretty clear. All the exciting new applications are running in the browser, with application code in the cloud, and the cell phone as the platform. Your cell phone will become your primary computer. I think in the near future there will be docking stations everywhere with a screen and a keyboard. You simply pull out your phone, plug it into the docking station, and instantly all your applications and data are available to you. Chrome, Google Apps, and Android make this vision possible.

Think about the cell phone you had 10 years ago, in 1999, and compare it to the phone you have today. More power, more memory, better networks, more applications, etc. Now project 5 or 10 years ahead. The vision of your phone as your computer is not far off. You will be able to decide which applications and data you want resident on the phone and which you want in the cloud. You will be able to plug it in anywhere; in an airport, hotel, airplane, office lobby, etc, and have instant access to everything you need.

2010 the turning point - I think 2010 will be the year that enterprises of all sizes start their transition to Gmail and Google Apps, and take their first steps towards the vision of the future. The move towards Cloud Computing is obvious. Gmail and Google Apps are the easy first steps in that direction. The cost savings are enormous,over $500 per user per year. Compare that to buying software licenses and maintenance from the old style software giants, and add the costs of server hardware, and IT managers to run them.

The next 5 years are going to be exciting. There will be big changes in the software industry. I am thrilled to be at Google and look forward to being a small part of the movement to the future of computing.

 Subscribe - To get an automatic feed of all future posts subscribe here, or to receive them via email go here and enter your email address in the box in the right column.

A very interesting view from someone who recently left Microsoft to work at Google.

The latest quarterly survey by comScore reports that the iPhone just passed Windows Mobile phones in US market share, though it remains at just over half the level of the Blackberry.

The iPhone has been outselling Windows Mobile for some time, so it was only a matter of time until there were more iPhones in peoples' hands. Android is still at the back of the pack but is showing signs of significant momentum.

Tracing links back from blog to blog the comScore phone survey of users about what types of phones they have in their hands appears first on FierceDeveloper; comScore's press contact was unavailable for comment but mobile developers say the numbers are unsurprising.

As we move toward 2010, there is little question that mobile devices and smartphones will continue to have a huge impact on the market. Research firm Nielsen predicts that smartphones will dominate market share by the end of 2011, with the iPhone and Android-based phones taking the lead spots by a wide margin over traditional cell phones.

As devices mature, Wi-Fi connections become more ubiquitous, and 3G networks become more reliable, consumers will start looking for new ways to use their smartphones as replacements for other larger devices, such as PCs and TVs. One area that has been called out for growth is mobile video and TV, as well as streaming movies directly to a mobile device.

mSpot CEO and co-founder Daren Tsui made the case to me recently that full-length streaming movies will be important to consumers in 2010 because people want entertainment on the go and on demand. Research suggests that the adoption curve will be lead by young males 18- to 24-years-old and parents with young children looking to keep kids distracted.

Not surprisingly, mobile carriers are very supportive of mobile movies. According to Tsui, mSpot has been powering mobile movies on the Sprint wireless network for three years and is currently working with other carriers to bring the service to their user base. Realistically, carriers will always be happy about services they can offer and charge for, but the real question is if they could handle an influx of users sucking down huge amounts of bandwidth.

The obvious obstacle to be overcome is the strength of the data network. Streaming full-length movies to a phone is data-intensive, and therefore relies heavily on a strong, consistently reliable network. Assuming WiFi is available, this is a non-issue, but, as an example, AT&T's 3G network has struggled with the data usage of iPhone users and you can just imagine what will happen when millions of people start streaming movies.

Anecdotally, I can tell you that my wife and I bring an iPod Touch out with us to entertain my 2.5-year-old with various games and movies. Pocket-size mobile devices, iPod or otherwise, can be great learning tools as well as distractions when things are going sideways or when you just want to go to a restaurant and not chase a kid around. That said, my iPhone/AT&T network experience has been so spotty that I would likely opt to keep the content local, though in an ideal world new content could be downloaded in the background.

Assuming bandwidth is not an issue there are many possibilities for mobile content to take the place of traditional PCs or print media but in the near term mobile content will be only as good as its data connection.

Mobile, Mobile everywhere!