Healthcare, Healthcare, Healthcare – The Marcia Brady of the Mobility Space?

Healthcare, healthcare, healthcare. It’s like the mobile industry’s own Marcia Brady these days, as more and more attention is being given to mHealth. Just yesterday, we posted an interesting article about what happens when doctors lose their smart devices. But, healthcare mobility issues go beyond losing devices and extends to much higher-level mobility strategy. In May 2010, Gartner’s John Lovelock stated that healthcare CIOs were lagging when it came to having a sound strategy for enterprise mobility in place. CIOs stated that they were hoping one mobile platform or OS would emerge for management purposes. While no single platform has emerged as the clear winner, things are changing when it comes to mobility in healthcare.

“Mobile is certainly still one [area of health IT] that needs to be on that list of what’s coming. It’s here, but it’s still coming. We are just seeing the beginning of that. This is going to be something that is going to become much more significant,” said HIMSS CEO H. Stephen Lieber in an interview with MobiHealthNews.

We’ve mentioned that there doesn’t seem to be one clear platform winner, but Apple’s iPad is really making a big case for its place in the healthcare mobile ecosystem. According to an article in Wired, the Veterans Administration is looking to deploy 100,000 iPads across 152 locations and with the announcement of the iPad 3, CIOs will need to assess where it fits within their mobile ecosystem. Once they assess where it fits in, the bigger question becomes, “How do we manage it?”

For obvious reasons, security is a big issue in the healthcare mobile ecosystem and management extends beyond the physical device. As the BYOD phenomenon spills over into the healthcare sector, employees want their own devices to have network access. While the iPad and other slick handheld products get most of the attention with healthcare mobility, CIOs can’t forget about the management of other endpoints that are in the ecosystem: printers, ruggedized handhelds, routers, access points, etc.

If you’re an IT professional in the healthcare field, are you mindful to buy and consider products that can manage multiple platforms and OSes? Do you think multiple platform management is important? We’d love to hear your opinion.

-BH

We’ve Added Another Mobile Device Manufacturer to the Wavelink Family!

We’re exited to announce that we’ve added Casio to the Wavelink family of global partnerships! Casio’s DT-X8 hand-held terminal now comes preloaded with our Wavelink Avalanche, Wavelink Terminal Emulation and Wavelink Industrial Browser, making it easier than ever to quickly deploy these applications across an entire enterprise.

The partnership simplifies the deployment and management of a mobile environment with Avalanche, while giving Casio DT-X8 customers the most widely used TE platform on the market.

Casio’s DT-X8 was released in 2011 and has been extremely successful. The ruggedized device is ideal for use in very tough applications where the rugged design is top priority. We’re proud that this extremely rugged hardware is now equipped with our equally rugged software applications for fast and easy deployment across the enterprise.

Welcome to the team!

 

MDM Deliveries – Benefits of SaaS MDM Wrap-Up

As many of you saw at our live webinar last Thursday, there are many factors that go into which MDM delivery method might best suit your organization. The traditional method of deployment requires that you, as an organization, provide a level of commitment to hosting your own service.  This model has clear advantages in terms of providing complete control and may also suit legal and technical challenges that may exist.  However, there is an alternative deployment option which still provides the equivalent high level of security, while at the same time offloading installation and maintenance tasks.

By opting for a SaaS model, you’re better able to focus on your business of managing your devices without having to deal with operational issues.  Those operational issues can often delay deployments, as the necessary infrastructure needs to be in place for the benefits to be realized. For companies that are new to device management, or for companies where the investment cannot be justified, at least initially, what sorts of operational benefits are included in your subscription?

Installation

• Sign up and go!
• All you need to think about is loading a client agent onto a device and enrolling the device into your segment of the cloud service.

Reliability

• Your SaaS provider hosts the service using hardware, connections and facilities that are highly resilient.

Scalability

• As you add more devices your subscription level automatically adjusts the resources needed to keep your devices up to date, monitored and secure.  There’s never a need to perform any hardware or connection upgrades because you’ve grown.

Disaster Management

• Anyone that runs their own IT organizations knows the importance of having standby hardware and backup/restore capabilities in the event of the unforeseen.  Again, the SaaS provider has these procedures already in place and has high-availability-by-design.   And the best part is that you don’t even need to care about it.  Your service just keeps on working, 24/7.

Financial Benefits

• Your commitment to a SaaS service has a fixed timeframe and you are able to grow your subscription as you need more management capabilities and as your revenue grows.

Of course, opting for a SaaS vendor which has both on-premise and a SaaS management offering which are based around a common technology, also makes it much easier should you decide to enroll into SaaS, or move operations into your own IT organization.

The Wavelink SaaS product, Avalanche On Demand, provides customers with the same features and control that an on-site installation offers but with lower up-front costs complete with maintenance included in the subscription. Priority concerns such as security are also addressed by providing an encrypted path between your management console and Wavelink’s servers, as well as encrypted communications between each device and the Avalanche On Demand data centers.

Since Wavelink has adopted a full Web-based approach to both account control and device management, access couldn’t be simpler.  The user-friendly console design streamlines device management tasks, making them as efficient as possible while providing rich reporting and status information about your managed estate.

Customers simply pay a monthly subscription fee for each mobile device they wish to manage. The fee covers standard maintenance and upgrades.

To see how Avalanche On Demand can benefit your organization click here to view the webinar in its entirety.  What are some insights you might have towards the different delivery models? Have you been part of any discussions on the topic with colleagues or industry veterans?

-Martin Brewer

Site Seeing From Honeywell APAC Partner Conference

Good afternoon! Quick post with some pictures for your Thursday afternoon.

Kelly Ungs, Steve Shea, and H’ng Cui Gin attended the Honeywell APAC Partner Conference earlier this week, and sent along some photos. As the need for mobility continues to boom in emerging markets such as China, device manufacturers such as Honeywell, are answering the call.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

-BH

Are Tablets the Next Hover-boards?

Seems like yesterday. The future was right around the corner, and hoverboards and flying DeLorean’s were about to appear on every street corner.  As it turns out, instead of hoverboards, we got something even cooler… smart devices, like tablet computers! Instead of finding a hoverboard in your local retail shop, tablets ended up reaching us first… just not necessarily always on the store shelf for purchase.

Imagine yourself lost in a department store, or waiting for the line to wind down, or even worse, you can’t find the cash register.  Out of nowhere, an employee approaches you to complete your transaction and check you out right there without you even having to walk up to the register!  Odd right?  Well, it turns out it’s becoming more and more common.

It’s no surprise that the tablet market is growing as Point-of-Sale devices in the retail industry.

A Top 10 List with MDM and TEM

I’m a big fan of top-10-type lists, especially when it relates to enterprise mobility. So naturally, when I saw this particular “top-10” which discusses “Top 10 Mobile Voice Predictions” I was intrigued. Turns out, it’s also got some really good discussion on key industry trends, such as BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) MDM and Telecom Expense Management (TEM), which we are just beginning to see take hold in the enterprise mobility space. The author expands on the TEM front, by saying we should begin to see a greater need for the corporate TEM strategy to be included with the corporate MDM strategy.

“Greater integration takes place between the TEM and Mobile Device Management (MDM) propositions, as smartphone penetration in the enterprise market continues. MDM is one of the hottest topics around at the moment.”

This is something that few companies have yet to embrace, and just as the article explains, it should be something that we begin to see implemented in many companies throughout 2012 and beyond. Take a look and tell us what you think, or give us a few of your top topics for 2012!

10 Lessons for Managing Mobile Devices via Forrester

I know this is slightly behind us (Sept.), but I thought I’d share on the heels of our webinar yesterday, which discussed MDM for the Entire Enterprise and the current state of the MDM landscape. The article comes via Network World and is a run-down of the top 10 lessons learned about managing mobile devices. I won’t spoil any of the 10 lessons because it’s a good, quick read, but take a look and tell us what you think in the comments, or on Twitter or Facebook!

10 Lessons for Managing Mobile Devices, via Network World and Forrester

 

Healthcare CIO’s and Mobile Devices: What’s the Problem?

For those of you getting ready for the Holiday weekend, we hope you have a great weekend! But, for those who are not celebrating – or haven’t left the office just yet – we wanted to pass along a good read about MDM in the Healthcare.

InformationWeek had an article yesterday on the problems healthcare CIO’s are facing when it comes to the proliferation of mobile devices in the healthcare space. The article points out many of the common themes we are hearing (especially when it comes to BYOD) about smart-device management. However, it brings up an interesting point that is often overlooked when the smartphone/tablet/smart-device conversation comes up: what is their effect on the WLAN? Not only do you have extra demand on information traveling to-and-from, but you also need to make sure that the extraordinary amounts of data are secure.

As the article explains, “The ‘bring your own device,’ or BYOD, phenomenon in hospitals has created a networking problem for CIOs by driving up demand on wireless LANs and has kept security officers busy because it’s difficult to control all the data that flows to hundreds or thousands of handheld computers…”

The piece has a lot of interesting information, so if you’re looking for a quick read before you’re off for a long weekend, we suggest you check it out! Also, if you’re interested in learning more about smart-device MDM, check out our upcoming webinar here.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

 

Vote for Wavelink Enterprise Mobility Solutions

We are proud to say that we’ve been nominated for a number of awards at this years Mobile Star Awards, presented by Mobile Village. This years nominations include our Avalanche mobile device and infrastructure management solution, as well as Speakeasy, our voice-enabled application software. It’s pretty much just a matter of registering, and then voting! Stop by today and tell them why you chose Wavelink!

How Seriously Are Your Employees Taking Smartphone Security?

A team member from our Seattle office shared this link about a recent study that might raise some eyebrows for any company utilizing smartphones. The first paragraph summarizes nicely;

Nearly 40 percent of smartphone users say they’re worried about security, including harmful apps, malicious emails and having their locations tracked and activities monitored. But 82 percent of them are not using security apps for their cellphones.

Let that sink in for a minute. Think about what corporate information is available on those phones. How many of your employee’s are using their smartphones to access work tasks, such as email? What would happen if that information ever got into the hands of someone it’s not supposed to?

It’s just another example of what IT professionals are dealing with these days, amidst the proliferation of mobile devices in the enterprise. Further, if you’re interested in the subject of smartphone management, check out our upcoming webinar that should prove pretty insightful on smartphone management, monitoring and securing.