This week in No Jitter, Cisco Collaboration Senior Vice President and General Manager Barry O’Sullivan looked into his crystal ball and elaborated on his predictions for 2012.

In an excerpt, Barry predicts:

“1. Post PC-era will explode

2. Video will break through

3. Contact Centers will evolve as customers choose to interact with companies in radically new ways

4. Companies will use the cloud and desktop virtualization to provide collaboration capabilities across the enterprise

5. Social business processes will become mainstream for many.”

Read Barry’s predictions in more detail and the follow-up answers Barry gave to Eric Krapf’s questions. I trust you’ll enjoy reading the article.  Send in your predictions for 2012 for collaboration, video, social software, and contact center.

Tags: Android, Cisco Cius, Cius, cloud, Cloud Computing, collaboration, contact center, desktop virtualization, desktop virtualization infrastructure, hosted contact center, IBM, IBM Connections, iPad, iphone, jabber, lync, mac, Microsoft Lync, PC, Post-PC Era, quad, RIM, smartphone, Smartphones, social, Social Business, tablet, unified communications, video

By Jason Kohn, Contributing Columnist

Pop quiz: How many screens does it take to watch television programming? For a growing number of people, the answer is two — a TV, plus a media tablet or mobile smartphone. That may seem counterintuitive, but for many of us (present company included) a mobile “companion” device has become an essential part of the living room TV experience.

According to a Nielsen survey of 12,000 connected device owners, 70 percent of tablet owners and 68 percent of smartphone owners use their devices while watching TV. Tablet owners in particular seem unable to put down the iPad while flipping channels, with respondents saying that nearly a third of the time they spend using their device is in front of the TV.

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Tags: customer experience, entertainment, innovation, smartphone, tablet, television

There are some interesting security developments on the BYOD front that may present serious HIPAA challenges for healthcare delivery organizations.  If you’re not following the story I’ll give you the quick summary.   Security consultant Trevor Eckhart discovered monitoring software from Carrier IQ on his Android based smart phone.  The software which he could not disable was placed there by the cellular carrier in an effort to monitor and enhance the end user experience.  His testing reviled that the software was able to log keystrokes, URL’s, GPS location and SMS text messages amongst other items.  All of the juicy information that is collected encrypted and uploaded to the carrier or manufacturer for “analysis” – NICE!

 The seriousness of the issue sparked a federal probe with Senator Al Franken sending a request to the software vendor, manufacturers and cellular carriers asking for specific details of the monitoring software capabilities and how the information collected is being used.   Many of the responses received to date raised many more questions than they answered. 

By the time you read this, the holiday season will be behind us.   The second longest post-holiday line over the dreaded Toys-R-Us return line is likely to be in front of the IS Support desk come “Monday Morning”.  All the Cindy Lou Who’s will be in line asking that their smart device be given access.      

It will be interesting to see the statistics, but I suspect that in comparison to previous years, it’s highly likely that many more BYOD smartphones and tablets will enter the healthcare environment.  One of the top care about for CIO’s is to provide rapid provisioning within their organization.  This is great, but I often wonder if responding to the demand could result in cutting the proverbial corner without knowing it!

Given the need to deploy a wide variety of BYOD devices quickly and securely, the healthcare Chief Security Officer (CSO) certainly has their job cut out for them these days.  The shire volume of consumer devices entering the enterprise environment raises some serious questions as to their readiness, especially in regard to security and privacy – add ePHI and the responsibilities of covered entities and you have some significant reason for concern.  Perhaps before a healthcare system adopts a BYOD policy, one should consider the ramifications of allowing the wide range of consumer devices (and contracted carriers) to access protected resources.  I’d suggest that it’s certainly time to consider the use of an enterprise ready device – one such as the Cisco Cius where you can control key aspects related to maintaining security and enhancing the user experience.

Cisco Cius with AppHQ is an Enterprise Ready Tablet

First, with the monitoring software described, don’t assume that your security policy by itself is sufficient.  Remember this software, as with others to likely follow, are key loggers.  Such applications by definition capture each and every keystroke and button press regardless of the application or transport/network encryption being used.  Many CSO’s may incorrectly conclude data loss is impossible given the use of VPN technology.   Likewise some will conclude that their adoption of VDI assures that the data stays local to the healthcare system and not to the device.  While partially true, we are effectively talking about keystrokes being logged.  Clearly a physician WILL over time enter data that is classified as ePHI – all nicely collected and uploaded unknowingly to a 3^rd party.  Even SMS text messages sent or received by such a device is within scope!

My advice is to stay abreast of this developing story, and in the meantime, take the time necessary to fully understand the ramifications of allowing various devices (and carriers under contract) to access your protected resources.  It’s no longer about robust authentication mechanisms, secure encryption and remote wipes – It’s now much more than that!  Also remember that a device that is classified as “safe” today might not be in compliance after an OS upgrade or application install in the future.  Taking accountability for the device and the applications being loaded onto it by either the user or carrier is YOUR business.  Having a system in place that facilitates YOU being able to control the OS and the applications that are being installed on BYOD devices is a critical objective. 

So make sure that the next time you’re planning a BYOD party that you recognize all the guests being invited – otherwise some valuables in the form of ePHI may be slipping out the back door!

Tags: byod, Carrier IQ, CarrierIQ, Cisco Cius, Cius, HIPAA, Smart phone, smartphone

Earlier this week, we kicked off  special customer guest blog series with Andrew vonNagy, author of the blog Revolution Wi-Fi, and active on Twitter @revolutionwifi. Join us today as Andrew explores the next two major retail trends changing the Wi-Fi industry, and catch up with the first part if you missed it.

Trend 2: Empowering Sales Associates
Given the increasingly connected and smart shopper, consumers now have more product information than in-store sales associates in many cases. Yet sales staff are key to providing a great consumer experience in-store. Retailers need to empower sales associates with the depth of product information that consumers have, and to provide additional tools that facilitate existing and new services offered by the retailer.

Historically, only a fraction of retail sales associates have been provided with mobile devices, and those devices have enabled only a limited set of capabilities such as stocking, inventory management and product availability. One reason for this is the high cost of ruggedized mobile devices for use in retail. A typical high-speed scanner PDA can cost well over $1,200 each. In order to provide every sales associate with more information to help consumers, retailers are adopting lower-cost, feature-rich, smart mobile devices that provide more robust capabilities than specialized scanners. Mobile platforms built by Apple, Android, and third-party manufacturers are enabling this shift, along with a retail IT focus on enabling business processes in a more flexible, consistent, and re-usable fashion.

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Tags: 802.11n, digital signage, iPad, iphone, mobile devices, mobile pos, retail, sales, smartphone, tablet, wi-fi, wifi, wireless, wireless LAN

This is the type of post that gets me excited. Today, I’m happy to feature a special customer guest author: Andrew vonNagy, CCIE #28298 (Wireless), and currently Technical Architect for a Fortune 50 retail company. Many of you may know Andrew from his active blog, Revolution Wi-Fi,  or his Twitter feed: @revolutionwifi. Stay with us over the next two weeks as Andrew offers his take on the intersection of Retail and the Wireless LAN industry.

Retail Wi-Fi networks have long been dominated by inventory management applications and services that enabled a more productive workforce and leaner operations. However, brick-and-mortar retail is being disrupted due to the explosive growth from pure e-commerce competitors offering [often] lower prices and a more personalized shopping experience. In addition, the e-commerce sales channel offers deeper product information, community reviews, and greater levels of localization and customization that resonate with consumers.

Brick and mortar retail must adapt to compete in this new environment. A key component of this adaptation is delivering new IT solutions while leveraging the physical assets of the storefront, mixing the benefits of in-store product “touch-and-feel” with the personalization of e-commerce shopping. Merging these two worlds together will create an enhanced shopping experience through the use of mobile Internet devices, often connected through Wi-Fi networks.

This week, we will cover the first of 5 trends driving Wi-Fi growth and new capabilities in retail organizations:

Trend 1: Consumer Interaction and Business Analytics

Physical retailers have the most influence over consumer purchase decisions in the store, when they are standing in front of the product they are weighing whether or not to buy. Historically, this has been through in-aisle marketing and signage. However, customers are increasingly equipped with mobile Internet access and turning to external sources of information in real-time while within a retail store. This has been coined the emergence of the “smart shopper”. These external sources of information are much more comprehensive than what the retailer can provide through traditional in-aisle marketing and signage, and this leaves the physical retailer at a big disadvantage.

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Tags: guest wi-fi, location based services, mobile, mobile payments, NFC, retail, smart shopper, smartphone, wi-fi, wifi, wireless, wireless LAN