My Favorite Links for 12/2/2011 - An Ode @EricDBrown

For a while now, I have been following Eric Brown via RSS and Twitter (@EricDBrown) for a while now.  One of the things I have always enjoyed from Eric is his weekly publication of links.  Based upon enjoying these links, I have decided to publish my weekly links not only to share but for me to track what I found interesting over time.  Most of these will links will be technical in subject but every once in a while there will be an odd-ball or running related link.

So here's the first week's links.

• A strong BYOD policy should be SOP http://goo.gl/fb/sf3Tp
• The President of CIO magazine shares his Top Ten Tech Predictions for 2012 http://bit.ly/rwtUud 
• iPads in the enterprise: CEO ego is driving adoption: iPads have taken over the boardroom, and corporate CEOs an...http://bit.ly/sLk0PS
• CIO says supporting iPhone and iPad led to 92% reduction in broken devices: After switching to support Apple mo...http://bit.ly/vGDN7k
• Google's latest research digs into how #tablets are used. Interesting takeaway: multitasking is huge http://tabtim.es/7i 

Odd - Ball of the Week

• Who new that "calc" was this powerful.  Get the most out of calculator - calculate fuel economy, lease payments, and mortgage payments http://bit.ly/uqktit

My Visit to Ball State's CICS Program

On November 12th I was invited to speak at Ball State's CICS Placement Seminar for it's graduate students.  The goal of this seminar is to prepare the students for their upcoming entrance into the IT work environment.  It was an honor to share the platform with the individuals listed below and I was amazed that all of our presentations intertwined although we had never talked beforehand.  My talk, titled "After CICS Begins Now", focused on making sure the students are taking time now to think about what they want to do after graduation.  I focused a portion of this presentation on building your career brand via social media.



Beau King of ATT presented on personal Salesmanship
Branden Bute of Ball State presented on Job Mining
Todd Hollowell & Amy Reid presented on Resume Building

Good luck to all the students upon their completion of CICS.

Beyond the EMR: Improving Patient Care - Microsoft Healthcare Briefing

Rich Nero - Healthcare Solutions Group presents Beyond the EMR with a focus on Amalga. Provided below are some high level notes from his presentation

To date, Microsoft has spent 1 Billion on Healthcare Solutions Group.

Microsoft's goal is to fill the gap to provide useful information that is stored in clinical systems and data warehouses, this gap is filled by Microsoft's Amalga solution.

Amalga's goal is to the streamline operations, coordinate care, and engage patients.

5 Areas where Microsoft believes Amalga can provide value:

• Improve Patient Safety & Quality
• Readmissions - solution is Readmission Manager
• Early Warning Score
• Revenue & Cost Optimization
• Compliance Tracking and Reporting
• Coordinating Care Across Providers
• Engaging Patients In Care
• Care Transitions
• Chronic Disease Management

Items in BOLD are their primary focus today and where Microsoft has use cases.

Essentially Amalga is a Business Intelligence solution that Healthcare focused.  Its advantage is that it is a platform versus a bunch of individual solutions.  The challenge they have is that some of their solutions are already built into clinical systems.

Why Enterprise's Should Stay with BlackBerry for Now

In a recent Forbes article, BlackBerry Owners Flock to iPhone 4s in Record Numbers, the author insinuates that this this is the beginning of the end for BlackBerry because of their recent service issues and unclear roadmap.  This may be the case for BlackBerry's consumer market but I challenge that there is a clear cut reason for companies to jump ship to the iPhone.  An enterprise that has a sizeable investment in BlackBerry should consider the following before swapping out their BlackBerry devices for the iphone.

• Primary use of smartphones in your company is still email, calendar, contacts and phones
• No industry or company specific applications that are only available on the iPhone
• Poor support model for iPhone replacement (requires going to the local Apple store)
• Cost of iPhone versus BlackBerry when procuring through major wireless vendors.  In most cases, a BlackBerry device can be procured for next to nothing while an iPhone4 is $99.
• Immaturity of management tools for the iPhone.  Yes, there are MDM solutions for the iPhone but very few of them are to the maturity of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES).

The debate on whether enterprise companies should migrate away from BlackBerry will continue to get traction if the company doesn't find away to rectify its recent mis-steps.  However, for now I contend that the BlackBerry solution for the companies is a solid for those that already have the investment.

Why I decided to get Apple Certified

For years, I have absolutely despised technical certifications as I have worked with certified professionals that only excelled at reading books and failed in application of their knowledge.  Based upon this I put off working on my Apple certification for my current job.   However, this week I decided to change my mind and obtained my certification as an Apple Certified Associated - 10.7 Lion Integration.  I know this is just an entry level certification from Apple but it is the beginning to become an Apple Certified Technician.

Not to sound cliche after the passing of Steve Jobs, but after listening to his 2005 Stanford speech several times I got motivated to learn something new to move my career forward.  I am hoping this motivation will see me through the next certification level that I hoping to achieve by the end of the year.

Can Microsoft Windows Phone & Nokia Replace BlackBerry in Enterprise?

Introduction
Most of the tech industry is aware that RIM/BlackBerry is losing ground in the sales of smart phones and this includes corporate purchased ones, a sector that they have traditionally dominated.  With the mobile industry ever changing has initiated a lot of IT shop discussion on what the future holds for mobile phones within the corporate enterprise.

Could this be the future?
Recently, the VP of IS Infrastructure at a Midwest Healthcare System posed the scenario discussion below to several colleagues in order to solicit feedback on a project he did for his MBA class.

What would you do if you were in charge of all corporate cellular telephony decisions, and Microsoft came to us within the next year offering:

• Fully encrypted devices
• Device management using the same tools that manage your servers and desktops.
• Devices with more consumer appeal than RIM. (And a broader range of devices, now manufactured by HTC, ZTE and Nokia.)
• Per device license costs significantly lower than RIM.
• Excellent Exchange / Outlook integration.
• Better native cloud storage (whether public or private) integration than even Apple or Android.

The Opportunity is There

Strengths Nokia has wide adoption worldwide. Microsoft dominates Office productivity, corporate email. Microsoft has a strong position in console and PC gaming Microsoft has a portfolio of Internet applications that compete with Google (live, hotmail, bing, messenger)

Opportunities Apple and Google not yet dominant in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. RIM’s declining position in corporate environments.

However History is Against Them Weaknesses Microsoft does not have a strong track record of mobile device hardware development (e.g. Zune, xbox ring of death) Nokia software development has lagged peers.

Threats: North American market dominance and lead of established players Apple and Google. Asian device makers (i.e. ZTE, HTC) challenging Nokia with low-cost Android devices.

So What Strategy Should be Implemented for Microsoft & Nokia to be Successful?

• Challenge RIM in corporate environments via Exchange email and Office apps.
• Leverage Xbox Live gaming
• Embed Microsoft search, email, and messenger.
• Microsoft and Nokia partnership allows each firm to focus on areas of traditional strength, leverage an established partner for non-core competencies.
• Differentiate to avoid segmented competition within Android device maker space.
• Leverage Microsoft’s relationships with developers and development tools to jumpstart app market.
• Partnership provides with Microsoft with credible devices.

The Future will Require Businesses to Pick the least of all evils

The next 24 months will be an interesting time in the mobile phone industry to see if there becomes a clear leader, especially in the enterprise. It is difficult on a daily basis to determine who is more evil… Microsoft, Apple or Google.  It depends upon which poison tastes sweetest to you and what you value most (choice, markets, features, security, privacy, etc).  Most enterprise companies despise Microsoft’s monopolistic practices, but at least they treat companies as a traditional customer. In the case of Google, it seems that the consumer is their product. Yuck!!!  It is difficult to know what to think about Apple in the enterprise and most companies are trying hard to understand this as more of their products make there way into the environment.

Finally...
Maybe the commonality between Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8 will allow Microsoft to become the clear cut leader