Alzheimer’s Disease
A practical guide to dealing with Alzheimer’s

This is a practical, what-you-need-to-know guide to Alzheimer’s Disease. It is written in non-technical terms, and is geared towards people who are dealing with family members with Alzheimer’s.

Introduction

Alzheimer’s is a degenerative disease of the central nervous system characterized primarily by premature senile mental deterioration. Factors that affect the progression of the illness appear to have a genetic basis, however, lifestyle can have an accelerative or deccelerative effect, depending on choices made. The progression of the illness can be subtle on a day to day basis, but over a period of months it can be quite noticeable. The onset of the illness in the begining is subtle, and is characterized by a decline in short-term memory. If you’re dealing with someone who is developing Alzheimer’s, the change is non-obvious, and is often attributed to personality quirks ("he’s usually absent-minded"). Over the longer term, the most recent memories are the first to fade, memories that are more deeply embedded tend to last much longer. As an example, you’ll find that the person in question can provide an unusually detailed recollection of events from decades ago, but can’t remember a conversation from five minutes back. In addition, because the illness takes out short-term (or less embedded) memories first, what tends to happen is that their strongest personality traits become more manifest (because they are more deeply ingrained) as secondary personality characteristics start to fade.

There appear to be three broadly based stages; in stage one the victim is aware of the problem, but tends to fall into a strong state of denial (the victim tends to act like a petulant teenager), in phase two, the disease is more advanced, the behavior is more characteristic of a small child, there is a lot of repetition, and very poor retention of information. In phase three the sufferer is essentially an infant; they are unable to care for themselves, have to be fed by hand, need to wear diapers, etc. Once they reach phase three, the victim is in a weakened state, and is nearing the end of the illness. Often at this stage some other illness (e.g. pneumonia) can easily develop that will actually kill the patient. There is no known cure, however, because of the broad reach of the illness, there is a significant amount of effort being put into prevention and treatment.

What to do when someone you know is diagnosed

An Alzheimer’s diagnosis is very frightening for the victim, and stressfull for the victim’s family. If you find yourself having to deal with a relative or close friend who has been diagnosed, there are steps you can take to make the process more manageable.

1. Start by getting informed. Because the illness is becoming so prevalent, there is a lot of information available on treatments, what to expect, how to cope, etc. Go on-line and do research, go to your local library or bookstore and pick up a couple of texts, you should easily find a wide range of information.

2. Build out a support network for yourself, because you will need it. The process of caring for a loved one with Alzheimers is incredibly stressful; pull your siblings together (if you have them) to help you, having a support group of people you know can make a significant difference. There is also a growing list of local support agencies and non-profits of people who are going through the same process as you, this can also be a good source.

3. Get the victim’s financial, legal, and insurance documentation in order. People with Alzheimer’s are particularly susceptible to scam artists or unscrupulous telemarketers, as the caregiver you will need to take control of their finances quickly. This includes both longer-term investments such as annuities or their stock portfolio (if applicable) as well as short term financials, such as paying monthly utility bills, etc. Find a lawyer that specializes in Elder Law that can help you sort through all legal documentation (living wills, etc.). You need to do this sooner, rather than later; if you wait too long the victim will not have the legal capacity to sign documents that are designed to facilitate their care.

4. Examine longer-term care alternatives sooner rather than later. As the disease progresses, the level of care goes up exponentially. You might be able to deal with this during the early stages, but probably not in the later stages. It’s also likely that you have your own life to deal with (your job, your children, etc.), and you don’t want this taking you to the breaking point, either emotionally or financially. In-home care can facilitate the process for the victim, but can be very expensive, and there is the possibility of the victim being taken advantage of, because it is so easy to do. Managed care is a good alternative, but again, there is a wide range of costs and services associated with whatever choice is made. Do your homework early, and get ahead of the curve.

5. Treat the victim with respect. Keep in mind that arguing with a victim, or treating them like an infant, is pointless and will increase their stress level, which is likely to accelerate the process. Do not become impatient if you have to keep repeating yourself, it is the nature of the illness, and you need to learn to change the way you communicate with the victim. They are likely to become more easily upset and irrational, and in general much more difficult to be around, and this will get worse as the illness progresses. Adjust your filters accordingly, and do your best to be caring and supportive.

6. Simplify the victim’s choices. As the illness develops, trivial things suddenly become much bigger. A simple decision such as “what outfit do I put on?” can literally take hours and cause a lot of stress. Let the victim have a choice, but limit the choices to something manageable.

7. Pay attention to your family dynamic. If your family is like most, there is a peculiar dynamic at play that has probably been in effect a long time. Most people, and therefore most group dynamics do not handle stress well. It is incredibly important for siblings who are dealing with a parent with Alzheimer’s to have clear, continuous conversations about status and care of the victim.

Preventing Alzheimer’s via lifestyle

Although the illness appears to have a genetic basis, there are steps you can take now to minimize or delay Alzheimer’s onset. There is no proven cure (although there is a lot of research being done on this), and there are clinical trials for vaccines and treatments in progress (see the next section for details). The state of the art in terms of treatment and prevention will improve–there are a lot of very capable people backed by a lot of money trying to solve this–but in the meanwhile, there are steps you can take now. These include:

1. Get in shape. There is a strong correlation between people not taking good physical care of themselves and becoming susceptible to Alzheimer’s. You want aerobic activity, anything that increases the flow of oxygen to the brain is good. This is also useful in preventing other health issues such as heart attacks, stroke, etc. Get in shape now, and stay in shape.

2. Stop smoking. Aside from the obvious effect on your lungs, cigarettes limit the flow of oxygen throughout your body and brain.

3. Limit your drinking of alchohol. If you have to drink, try to keep it to one drink, with dinner. Anytime you feel a buzz from drinking, you’re killing brain cells, and that makes it that much easier for Alzheimer’s to develop.

4. Get interested. The more you use your brain, the longer it will serve it’s purpose. Learning new skills at a later age can improve the brain’s cognitive functioning and potentially delay the onset of the illness. Example? Learn a new language, learn how to play an instrument, take painting lessons, get involved in community activities, etc.

5. Floss your teeth. This sounds odd, but a study done in the UK showed a correlation between not flossing and higher incidences of Alzheimers.

6. Drink tea. There is an article listed below that show a potential correlation between drinking tea (specifically white tea, which is extremely high in antioxidants) and protecting yourself against cognitive decline. While the study results are somewhat inconclusive, drinking tea can’t hurt, and might help.

Potential treatments currently under development

There is a lot of work being done by big pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs that can slow down or reverse Alzheimer’s. Nearly all the Information in this section relates to drugs and treatments under development and/or going through clinical trials. Additional information will be added to this section as it becomes available.

• Aricept is commercially available now, and has proven effective in improving cognition and function. The drug is normally well tolerated, but people at risk for stomach ulcers should tell their doctors because serious stomach problems, such as bleeding, may get worse. Fainting, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, bruising, not sleeping well, muscle cramps, loss of appetite or fatigue are also possible side effects. In studies these effects were usually mild and temporary

• ARBs (angiotensin receptor blockers) are a blood pressure drug that has shown promising trial results in lowering the incidence and slowing progression of Alzheimers.

• Anavex 1-41 is a new drug under development that is focused on reducing “oxidative stress", this is the equivalent of removing rust from your brain.

• Bapineuzumab a drug being developed by Elan and Wyeth that has shown some positive results in slowing down Alzheimers. There are unwanted side effects for victims that have a genetic mutation referred to as ApoE4 (which does not affect most victims). There was also brain swelling in about 5% of patients treated during Phase II trials. Both companies appear to be pushing forward to Phase III trials.

• Dimebon Currently in trial at UCLA, has been effective at stabilizing cognitive decline over an 18 month test period. Dimebon appears to work through a mechanism of action that is distinct from current Alzheimer’s drugs. Dimebon improves impaired mitochondrial function; mitochondria are the central energy source of all cells and impaired mitochondrial function may play a significant role in the loss of brain cell function in Alzheimer’s.

• Gammagard Developed by Baxter, currently moving from Phase II to Phase III trials, targets beta-amyloid build up, has show good results on a very small sample.

• Marijuana This sounds like a stoner fantasy, but early tests indicated that labs rats that got high showed a reversal in memory loss. Based on the average memory retention rate for stoners, this seems totally counter-intuitive, but apparently the research is continuing.

• MTC a new drug under development by TauRx Therapeutics has shown good promise in untangling tau proteins in the brain, which can lead to a significant slowdown in the progress of Alzheimer’s.

• PBT2 This drug counteracts the production and build-up of a protein called amyloid-beta that occurs in Alzheimer’s disease. This protein, which can build up into a ‘plaque’, is believed to be toxic to brain cells and to prevent them from functioning properly.The study is being done by the Division of Neurosciences and Mental Health at Imperial College London.

• Rember Scientists say this medication may work by dissolving tangles of a protein that collects in the brain cells of Alzheimer’s patients. The preliminary study of 321 Alzheimer’s patients from Singapore and Britain found that this drug, previously used for urinary tract infections and other ailments, reduced the patients’ rate of mental loss by 81 percent, based on a standard measure of cognitive performance and memory.

• Statins Lipitor and other statins like Zocor help control cholesterol and heart disease. Studies done by the University of Michigan found taking statins over a five to seven year period reduced the risk for dementia by half. It appears statins can lower high insulin levels in the brain that lead to Alzheimer’s.

On-line Resources

The Alzheimers Association A good resource for information, education, outreach, etc.

ADEAR Alzheimers Disease, Education, and Referral Center, run by the National Institute of Health.

Alzheimers Foundation of America Another good resource, with strong support networks

YouTube The University of California and YouTube are collaborating on an Alzheimers and Dementia channel

Alzheimers Weekly A good on-line resource covering a wide range of topics, it appears to be care-giver centric.

Ashby A technique focusing on “brain exercises” that has shown to produce measureable results.


Related Illnesses

Vascular Dementia Vascular dementia is the result of a lack of blood flowing to the brain. It is the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer’s, and is often mistaken for Alzheimer’s. It has been referred to as multi-infarct dementia because it was thought to be caused by a series of small strokes. The recent name change was implemented to show the broader array of conditions that can affect the body’s ability to circulate blood in the brain. There is a good resource here, if you would like more information.

Mild Cognitive Impairment MCI is characterized by a decline in cognitive function, usually affecting people over the age of 65. MCI can often be a precursor to dementia, of which Alzheimer’s is the most common form. Having MCI does not necessarily mean Alzheimer’s will follow. Please follow this link for more information.

While there are a lot of variables that drive mobility, the one I’d like to focus on is mobile operating systems, since it drives so many other ecosystem components. The players include iOS, Android and its variants, webOS, RIM, Windows Phone, and Mozilla’s Boot to Gecko.

The recent announcement that HP is pushing webOS into the Open Source wilderness is another step in the seemingly random lifecycle of what had once been a promising technology. So at this point, why does it make any difference?

There are already two open source mobile OS alternatives in the market; the first is Android and all its permutations, and the second is Mozilla’s geekily named “Boot to Gecko” (B2G). The background context for any open source alternative is the perceived dominance of iOS (even though Android is selling at a much faster rate). Apple has set the bar, painted it gold, and created incredibly tight filters for anyone who wants to play in their gilded ecosystem. Google by comparison has taken a very hand-off approach to Android (we’ll let the device manufacturer’s worry about it), and as a result, Android comes in at a lower threshold and is much more “open” in the traditional sense. The problem with this is, of course, that having a lower threshold means the quality control is a lot looser when it comes to experiencing Android apps. There are a ton of free apps in the Android market, and most of them are worth what you’ve paid.

From a software development perspective, Android is not a unified offering either; because of Google’s loose grip, every handset vendor offering an Android device delivers their specific flavor of Android. Android-based apps running on a Samsung device need to be tweaked to run on a Motorola device, or an LG device, etc. In addition, the fact that Motorola is now a part of Google’s stable means there is bound to be built-in OS release bias in favor of Motorola (I mean, how could there not be?). The net effect of Google gobbling up Motorola means the other Android device vendors are looking fast and furious for alternatives, and at the time of the announcement, the only other viable alternative was Microsoft/Nokia. WebOS was officially “End-of-Lifed” in August of 2011 (HP having just a few months earlier announced that a version of webOS would run in Windows OS), and Mozilla was quietly cruising below the surface with B2G.

So now, only a few months later, HP has changed direction (again) and resuscitated, then kicked out its child, and Mozilla has broken the surface on their alternative. So there are now two more open source mobile OS alternatives. What is unusual about this is that normally the market for this sort of technology would be consolidating at this stage, not expanding. So the question is, can either of these alternatives gain traction against Android (since there is virtually no chance that either of these will displace iOS)?

webOS has the advantage of having been around a lot longer, and presumably has some level of developer ecosystem that has experience building apps against a webOS framework. On the other hand, it has been tightly contained within HP’s folds, and has not seen the light of day much outside of HP. HP’s pockets are pretty deep, but they also have a lot going on at the moment, and webOS is not likely to be a priority. It seems unlikely that HP will throw its weight and influence behind webOS in an open source world, so this is likely to be a quick sink or swim scenario.

Mozilla’s B2G is an interesting alternative, and their timing is either really good, or really lucky (which in the long run works out the same). While B2G may be relatively new, it comes from a pedigree of Open Sourcedness, which implies a built-in developer ecosystem that can be leveraged to take advantage of a mobile paradigm. The question will come down to how similar B2G is to the existing Mozilla development framework; developing to a mobile OS is different than developing to a browser or desktop paradigm, and will require a very robust SDK and support infrastructure. If Mozilla can ramp up a mobile developer ecosystem, and provide tighter on-boarding controls than Android (with the intent of creating a more compelling end-user experience), this could conceivably work. The bottom line for this will be that it can’t be a free-form “organic” growth model; there is a middle ground between Apple’s stunning control and the wild west mindset Google has applied to Android. If Mozilla can straddle these two extremes (leaning more towards the Apple model) they have a reasonable chance of making this work.

Then there is also the increasingly hapless RIM, who’s most likely scenario for 2012 is acquisition at a fire sale price, assuming the RIM board finally grows a pair and cracks the whip on the CEOs “leading” the company. BBX (the RIM OS name du jour) is unlikely to expand the RIM footprint in the enterprise (where Apple is starting to dig in deep), while at the same time they’ve had marginal success in the consumer space (which Apple also dominates at the high end, and Android at the low), both segments being critical to RIM’s long-term growth strategy, which is being systematically marginalized by continuous mis-steps.

Then finally there is Windows Phone, and the alliance with the previously formidable Nokia. Windows OS dominance globally is still staggering (except in the critical mobile space), and their presence across the enterprise ecosystem gives them a huge advantage, except that Windows Phone appears to be more of a consumer play than an enterprise play. Microsoft has been very effective on occasion, but tends to do best when it’s going into an expanding market with limited competition (e.g. IE vs. Netscape). This is not that case. Apple has become a formidable competitor within Microsoft’s historical target market, and Android is growing like kudzu in their secondary market (same dilemma as RIM, although Microsoft is in a relatively stronger position).

Who wins in all this? Not the handset manufacturers, they’re jumping from frying pan to frying pan at the moment. Apple will clearly come through this smelling pretty good, and that is likely to continue for a while. Android will continue to do well, but their model is so nebulous, its going to be hard to put the crown on an individual head (it won’t be Google/Motorola). For those waiting for goods news from RIM, you might want to get comfortable, it could be a while. Unless HP takes WebOS seriously in its new model, it could face another slow, lingering death. And then there is Mozilla. The overall market dynamic could work for them, they have a lot of smart people chasing after this, and their timing is pretty good. It will, as always, come down to focus, investment, and a bit of luck.

The Mobile Communications Phase

For the sake of convenience, let’s call it the year 2000. Everyone had cell phones, but they were feature phones, not smartphones. People were adjusting to being able to make phone calls at any time, from nearly any location (and at the time, that was pretty cool). RIM was making pagers, not phones, and the iPhone/iPad juggernaut was still seven years away from breaking the surface. This was very much the Mobile Communications Phase. A lot has obviously happened since then; RIM introduced the Blackberry, and suddenly phones became far more useful, Apple eventually rolled out the iPhone, and mobile phones went from useful to way cool almost overnight. It also ushered in the next phase, which is where we are now.

The Mobile Information Phase

Now that were into the second decade of the 21st century, we have clearly evolved from the Mobile Communications Phase to the Mobile Information Phase. We now go through life surrounded by infinite knowledge, and all we need to do to access it is swipe our finger on a small piece of glass. There are lots of vendors pushing into this space, with the most serious traction going to Apple and Samsung. People are still getting used to the idea of instant knowledge, regardless of where they are, and it is fundamentally changing our cultural epistemology. So given where we are, where are we headed?

The number of smartphones in active use is not likely to increase much beyond where it is, this is simply a function of how many people there are to buy/use a smartphone (which is to say, mobile device growth at some point will start to correlate more closely to population growth). We are currently at around 7 billion humans, and somewhere around 6 billion + mobile devices. By 2020 there will be around 7.6 billion of us, and so the number of devices in use is not going to increase that much, but there will be lots of upgrades as new devices continue to roll out, (I mean, who won’t want the iPhone15 or iPad10?).

The number of tablets will increase considerably, of course tablets are coming off a much smaller base than smartphones, so the upside is more significant. What could be more interesting is the development of a smartphone/tablet hybrid; what if you can change the size of your smartphone to accommodate specific business or entertainment needs? When you open up a laptop now, you effectively double the surface area you’re working with, what if you could do that twice on a smartphone (that is, 4X the surface area)? Unfold your smartphone twice, and you’re holding a tablet. There’s lot of hardware based permutations possible, and I expect people will tire of carrying around two devices when one hybrid can do the trick. But the real growth area, the real future of mobility is something else entirely.

The Mobile Environment Phase

If the first phase was Mobile Communications, and the second phase is Mobile Information, the next phase will be the Mobile Environment. By environment I mean anything you can touch, see, sense on any level will become an enabler of the mobile life. This will be driven by the integration of a much more massive ecosystem which already has over a trillion elements in play; specifically wireless devices, including sensors, RFID chips, grid networks, etc. The machine to machine space is a much bigger opportunity in the long run, and is also part of the mobile ecosystem. If you can stick a chip in it, you can give it an IP address, and you can mobilize it and analyze it. This can literally be applied to nearly anything, as well as to the component elements of anything; examples could include:

Transportation: you don’t just track a rail car, you track the pressure on the spring assembly, you separately track wear and tear on ball bearings, rail line wear, etc. Your automobile will be riddled with sensors which speak to each other on a continuous basis as you drive around, with the express intention of protecting you. They will also speak to other cars to avoid hazardous conditions, e.g water pooled on third lane of 280 southbound by Page Mill Road—cars approaching this location will automatically slow down, in fact BMW is already testing prototypes of this.

Consumer Packaged Goods: You walk into a grocery store, your iPhone15 uses location based services to know exactly where you are (Safeway) and automatically sends a request to your refrigerator to ping the food inside (hey milk, are you fresh?). The milk carton has an RFID tag with a sensor that tracks date of packaging, and knows that it expired yesterday (why no, refrigerator, I’m not fresh at all). Orange juice, on the other hand, tells the fridge it’s okay. The refrigerator sends a message back to the iPhone telling you what exactly to buy based on what you need to update, you drop everything into a cart, and walk right out of the store, since all the groceries have RFID tags, no need to check out, it happens automatically as you exit past a scanner, and the information is sent through your iPhone, to your bank to debit your account.

Health Services: We have an aging boomer population, and (unfortunately) a statistically significant population that will be susceptible to illnesses such as Alzheimer’s that require close supervision. Bracelets with RFID chips that contain the users complete medical history, including up to the moment medication doses, will become a standard part of care protocol. Furthermore, location-based technology can be used to know exactly where grandma wandered off to, and perimeter alerts can be set up to keep her from straying too far. Doctors can do a much more efficient job of remote diagnostics by analyzing small fluid samples in portable devices that can transmit data into a patient database that correlates across a vast array of clinical, historical, and personal data and provides the optimal solution to the patients current care requirements.

These are, of course, quick examples, there is a vast adjacent set of opportunities in both collaboration and analytics which will be executed through the enterprise and their associated supply chain, which I will address in a future blog.

Some insist that it is an iPad killer based on price point alone. Others believe it has carved out a new space and will succeed by enlarging the tablet market rather than cutting into iPad’s share.

Regardless of how the increasingly competitive tablet market plays out over the coming years, recent developments have revealed some interesting aspects of the tablet market that may be lessons for corporate IT decision makers. Consider that the prices of main-stream mobile devices are dropping. Although Kindle Fire has fewer features than the iPad, it has essential features for quickly viewing a wide range of image, video, and text based information. And at $199, the device is practically disposable.

This downward price trend is also true for high end smartphones. When iPhones first came to market four years ago, they sold for $599 (for the 8Gig of memory model). Within a few years the price point for high end phones settled in to the $200 to $300 range with a contract. However every new smartphone model comes with more computing power (including dual-core processors for the new generation), more memory, and other new features its predecessor did not have. This makes the new phones more serviceable devices for the same price.

Another interesting insight into pricing of mobile devices comes from HP as it lurches forward in search of a vision. When HP announced it was getting out of the tablet business and dropped the price its unpopular TouchPad from $379 to $99, it set off a mind boggling buying frenzy. Some observers noted that price matters.

Jeff Beezos suggests the success of tablet devices depends on the information services behind them (and in an earlier blog, I had made a similar observation, context can be a driving force). The iPad currently dominates the tablet market with a rich applications store and iTunes. Amazon’s Kindle Fire comes to market with books, streaming video, Android’s application marketplace, and a different kind of browsing technology that is supposed to accelerate access to internet based information. Other tablet makers have largely failed because information is not part of the offering. It is the information behind the device that matters perhaps more than the device itself, or as I have said in the past, the compelling event is the app.

One lesson here that is relevant to mobility in business is that the devices themselves are not so important. In fact devices are becoming so cheap and so functional that device adoption decisions are more like non-decisions. What makes these devices valuable is their relationship to corporate information. What applications will they run? What back-end data is available to workers? How can mobile workers use their devices to augment the data everyone on the organization depends upon? These are the real questions.

Initially, the concerns that arise from this consideration will have to do with availability of device resources, and it could be something as simple as “Will the device owner take so many pictures or videos with the onboard camera that there won’t be enough memory left for mobile business apps to function effectively?”. While introducing elements of uncertainty and the possibility that exceptional conditions will arise, these types of constraints are things app designers can work around if they are aware the potential for problems exists. Today, however, we are on the threshold of some dramatically more complex issues. Softpedia News reports that 87% of Wi-Fi Smartphones will support 802.11n in 2014.

Ubiquitous Wi-Fi in smartphones means that mobile devices will take a primary role in serving interactive content like multiplayer online gaming, streaming video and audio, and providing users with personal access to web-based assets like email and social media. Given this, it is very likely that some of the next generation mobile app neighbors will prove rambunctious. Because users own devices, and in many cases, pay for connectivity themselves, enterprise mobile apps that piggy back on these platforms have to toe a blurry line in terms of how much control they can exercise over a device and how many of its resources they can permanently co-opt. On the one hand it would be unreasonable to deny a user access to her own device or its feature set; On the other hand, enterprise mobile apps have to be able to:

• Operate with enough security to protect the privacy of sensitive data
• Operate robustly enough to ensure transactions are complete and validated
• Maintain sufficient contact with enterprise back end data repositories so they present the mobile worker with timely and accurate business intelligence

And not only do they have to be able to accomplish all of these objectives, they have to do so in a consistent fashion across a variety of mobile device hosts. Enterprise ready mobile strategy for a diverse population of Wi-Fi capable user devices demands a safe and durable sandbox in which enterprise mobile apps can live and function, without either unnecessarily impinging on their neighbors or being trampled by them.

It is admittedly simplistic, but a recent seven page PDF published by the US Department of Homeland Security and the Advertising Council provided a barebones template for a business continuity plan. It concerns itself with how an enterprise will preserve life, assets and business data. Realistically, however, to guarantee availability and continuity, it’s not enough to simply ensure that line-of-business apps and data will survive a disruption; mobility IT management infrastructure must also remain accessible and remain capable of running, provisioning and maintaining security of a mobile device network.

With business continuity on everyone’s mind, pairing mobile devices and cloud based infrastructure is a rising trend. This is now a core competency requirement for mobile technology managers and planners as well. Vendors are already consolidating and positioning to serve an emerging global market for hybrid and integrated cloud services. Recently, Verizon bought Massachusetts based CloudSwitch, a company whose technology offers enterprise an incremental path to the cloud or a means of operating a hybrid of in-house/cloud based architectures. Amazon, RightScale, Rackspace and others are jostling in the space, offering a variety of options worth evaluating. The important thing is to assess risks and plan ahead, because there doesn’t seem to be an acre of North America where there hasn’t been business continuity issues this year. And Hawaii has all of those volcanoes….

Customer facing mobile apps are more than just a way to reach consumers in the right place and at the right time with buying incentives. They are also a tool for finding out what is happening in a given brand’s community right now.

Think of it in these terms; there will never be an opportunity to see a fresher view of customer sentiment and motivation than the one harvested from mobile device users engaged with your brand, because unlike desktop and laptop users, mobile device users have an implicit context in location and time. The immediacy of this context goes a long way toward bridging the gap between marketing data and business intelligence. The distinction is significant, because while data is useful, intelligence is something I can use to make decisions.

However, because it is based on dynamic data, business intelligence that is location or temporally driven tends to have a very short shelf-life. This is why it is crucial to architect mobile solutions that integrate well with existing business intelligence infrastructure. As an example, if an IT architect is trying to build out mobile business process support, what they absolutely don’t want to see in their enterprise mobile solution portfolio is a collection of standalone mobile apps that are captive in line-of-business silos. Mobile apps should be able to readily move their data to backend systems that aggregate and propagate information to additional business areas that could or should respond to changing conditions. Like mobility, analytics is endemic to an enterprise ecosystem and should be leveraged across all functions and processes.

An enterprise ready mobile strategy should integrate cleanly and securely with existing data management infrastructure, be able to operate across traditional lines of responsibility and enhance customer engagement opportunities. In essence, this is one of the defining qualities of a mobile enterprise application platform. Like enterprise apps and devices, developing and managing business intelligence is a job that demands holistic business process architectures.

This also begs the broader question, how expansive a definition of mobility and associated analytics should be factored into your planning? There are over 6 billion mobile devices in play globally, which is a pretty big number by any standards, but there are over 1 trillion wireless devices out there, all gathering data on a continuous basis. If you can stick a chip in it, you can give it an IP address, so this is not just about the consumer, it is about everything the consumer interacts with, all of which ties into gaining a more nuanced and actionable perspective of how to anticipate customer requirements. While the confluence of mobility and analytics offers a vast confluence of opportunity, we are barely seeing the tip of the iceberg.

All of these are viable, but they miss the key point.

The success or failure of a device is ultimately a function of how useful it is. The iPhone is incredibly useful across a wide array of functions, because the driving framework-the compelling event-is the broad availability of applications. The distinction I want to draw here is the apps framework, and more specifically the term “broad”. At this point almost no one carries one device for work and another for not-work; why inconvenience yourself with two devices when one can do the trick? But in order for the trick to occur, the device has to be not only fun (e.g. Angry Birds), but also work as a productivity tool (e.g. CRM apps, Workflow apps, etc.). I use an iPad/iPhone because it covers the entirety of use; lots of work applications, access to unlimited web content, and mucho games.

So in Amazon’s case, you need to consider their perspective. The Kindle comes with free internet access, but you can only go to Amazon.com to buy more books. Makes sense. How will they contextualize an Amazon tablet? Their framework is selling stuff-an almost infinite variety of stuff-but that is the essence of their business model, and anything they produce will reinforce their existing model (it pretty much has to). Will this become a prettier or more convenient way to shop? I can already do that on my iPad (in fact, I probably do it too much already).

I don’t need a tablet just to shop. I need a tablet that addresses my daily information needs on a transactional basis, and a big part of that now is access to business applications. So given that the Amazon tablet will be an Android play (and there’s lots of Android tablets already out there), what does Amazon do to make their tablet the compelling event? A lower price point may help, but they don’t need to race to the bottom to be successful. More embedded security is a nice feature, but there’s a whole industry full of companies constantly upgrading mobile device security already.

What they need to do is correlate their vast array of information content (books, magazines, etc.) to apps that support business productivity. They don’t necessarily need to build the apps, there’s lots of Android developers out there doing that, but what none of these developers have (nor does anyone else, compared to Amazon) is an extremely broad and deep information resource base. That is Amazon’s key competitive differentiator; of course they will use the device to sell “stuff”, but contextualizing the sale to a user’s transactional framework could actually work really well. It can’t be overt (no one likes having ads or marketing shoved down their throat), but having it as an enabling background point of reference to a business process could be an interesting mash-up for them. I don’t think this will kill the iPad, frankly at this point I don’t think anything will, but there is still more than enough room in this space for alternative approaches to mobility, and Amazon’s perspective is unique.

The article argues that although Google claims to be only interested in Motorola’s patent portfolio, it is just a matter of time before they start favoring Motorola devices over all others. This argument ignores that fact that Google’s highly profitable business is based on ad revenue, not hardware and software sales (indeed, the Android operating system software is free). One might further question why Google would shift its attention from its highly profitable ad revenue (which is made possible by Android being on as many different mobile devices from as many different phone manufacturers as possible) to very low margin phone sales. Given Google’s relentless focus on profits, they are not likely to make that kind of trade. In fact, there is considerable incentive for them to keep their new hardware business completely separate from their search and advertising business (at least that’s the theory).

However setting that question aside, is the larger point of the article valid? Will having multiple competing mobile operating systems and devices herald a new “dark ages” for business software development?

Short version? Nope.

The FUD here is that the cost of supporting four or more operating systems will be so expensive that companies will either standardize around one (which risks making them incompatible with their partners or tying their fortunes to technology that could become obsolete), or they will need to support apps across a range of operating systems and be forced to limit their new software investments to small, low-function applications. Either way, innovation is stifled.
This would seem to be a logical conclusion. However it is based on the assumption that the cost of software development remains the same, and building an application to run on four different devices is four times more expensive than building it once. That, however, is not the case. New enterprise application development platforms (like the Sybase Unwired Platform, or SUP) are simplifying mobile application development. By delivering a standards based framework for creating mobile enterprise applications, platforms such as SUP make it easier and less expensive to build rich applications with a native look and feel, while tapping in to the vast ecosystem of web development talent, and at the same time breathe new life into existing server-based business applications. The fact is, the cost of building applications and managing complex device environments is dropping fast, which is one reason there is so much demand for business mobility these days.

It’s hard to predict the future, but here’s another way to look at recent trends in mobility: breaking the Microsoft virtual monopoly on client business systems could be a huge breath of fresh air for the industry.

Frankly, the flood of mobile devices and applications that are coming into the work place, and the efficiencies they are providing to business operations, is looking more like the start of a new golden age rather than an entire industry slouching toward the dark ages. To be successful in this new age, businesses need to adopt a mobility strategy that is device agnostic. Devices are commodities, software is what makes them useful (I mean, nobody buys an iPhone just to make phone calls, right?). Businesses should focus on a mobility strategy that enables them to build software they can easily port to whatever device is most suitable to the task at hand (or if nothing else, the latest shiny object). That way they can take full advantage of the latest commodity hardware while investing in deeper software functionality.

The far more interesting slant on this, however, is that the acquisition moves Google (with zero ambiguity) directly into the hardware business. So does this mean that the big brains at Google see hardware as a potential growth market? By controlling Android and buying Motorola Mobility, they now enter that exclusive club of companies that not only license an OS, but are also an OEM. This has to be significantly disruptive to their existing ecosystem, how could it not be? The commentary from Android licensees such as Samsung and HTC was polite, but it was likely delivered through gritted teeth.

The real question is how is Google going to keep bias from entering the system? There are over 500,000 Android phones being activated every day, but this blistering activation rate is spread out across 39 manufacturers. Since every OEM does their own little permutation of Android, the end user experience varies widely, which is pretty much the exact opposite of Apples tightly controlled gilded ecosystem. Google will continue to claim an agnostic approach (of course), but for 12.5 billion it is not unreasonable to assume that Motorola will get to cut in line when new shiny objects come out of the Google pipe. Where does this leave the big Android OEMs, specifically Samsung and HTC? It is now highly likely they will give Windows Phone a much finer scrutiny, since Microsoft is now pretty much the only hardware agnostic player left.

From an enterprise mobility perspective this is interesting, but probably won’t have much impact on the transformative drivers for adoption; the devices that are broadly used are limited in terms of the number of suppliers, and we work very closely with all of them. In addition, the contextual framework is becoming very apps centric (and we have a strong story for that as well), and the impact of the acquisition on that is likely to be limited as well.

The article points out that large companies like GE and GM, which were leaders in outsourcing technology jobs, are now reversing the trend and bringing those jobs back in house. GE is specifically cited as adding 1,100 new IT jobs at technology center near Detroit. What’s driving this change? As Charlene Begley (CIO of GE) tells it, “With iPads and whatever mobile devices people want to use, the need for better user experiences is essential to competitiveness. So we’ve got a team that’s really good at writing user applications that are sexy, impressive, and quick.”

It seems that application development, and particularly the ability to quickly create compelling mobile applications that respond to technology changes and business needs, is becoming a core competency for GE’s competitiveness. Although business mobility is not the focus of the article, it seems to me what GE and others are doing underscores how far mobility has come in a few short years. Just a few years ago we were debating the risks and cost benefits. Now for GE and many others, today’s reality is defined by these points:

• For these companies, mobility is becoming strategically critical inside the enterprise;
• Mobile apps are increasingly driving operations that constitute the enterprise’s unique competitive advantages;
• These companies now see these apps as too critical and proprietary to outsource;
• These companies are putting a premium on quick in-house development of new mobile apps.

These points suggest a trend toward mobility in which companies increasingly rely on mobile applications to manage business critical operations. It also suggests how important it has become for them to be able to rapidly develop new apps to meet business needs. This is actually very consistent with the message we’ve been pushing with the Sybase Unwired Platform, particularly with the announcement in May of the Hybrid Web Container, which expands the mobile app development pool from device –specific talent to web talent for creating rich applications across a variety of mobile devices. This is a great example of market validation of a trend we’ve been working with for several years, and underscores the critical importance of mobility to competitive success.

Sybase has always been the dominant presence in mobile device management, but we are quickly evolving towards a more comprehensive model that includes not only management of the device, but the applications that run on the device, including a rapidly expanding suite of mobile applications under development at SAP. The take up of mobility in the enterprise is moving so quickly, that we are now expanding our footprint to go beyond not only managing the device and the applications on it, but to actually provisioning and configuring the applications on the device through Afaria. Why move in this direction?

When you’re downloading a single app to a single device, it is generally not a terribly complex process, even if it’s a business application. The triggering event occurs when IT finds itself having to download dozens of applications to thousands of devices. This is not only an expansion in scale, it is also an expansion in scope. Rather than being a device based application, these applications are intended to access complex back-end data sources, and as such require a non-trivial amount of configuration before they can be used. This is, of course, beyond the abilities of non-technical end users (which is most of us), and before we moved to automate this process, it could take up to 30 minutes to set up one app on one device. What happens when there are 5000 devices that need configuration of a dozen apps? To address this need, we are now including libraries on the device that contain configuration instructions that are specific to the employee and the governance policies that apply to them. But then how do you actually get 5000 copies of an application out at once?

This leads to the next logical evolution that will accelerate the transformation of the enterprise; the rise of the corporate apps store. You can buy applications now for iOS devices through iTunes, you can buy Android apps through the Android store, carriers have their own apps stores, as do the device manufacturers, etc. This is actually fine for the end user as a consumer, since for the most part people have one type of smart phone and one type of tablet. It is not, however, fine from an IT perspective when dealing with the end-user as an employee. IT requires visibility, control, and transparency of use across a broad range of devices, particularly when the applications on the device are used to access high value back-end data sources. The concept of an enterprise specific apps store that recognizes the employee’s mobile information requirements and configuration parameters, offers them exactly what they need, and delivers it effortlessly to the device is the next logical step in the true mobilization of the enterprise.

Why?

The implications of what they just did. Applications development (whether waterfall or agile) is something that is traditionally measured by quarterly-based deliverables (in Q3 we will have this release(s), with these features, etc.). That whole model just got turned on its head by the introduction of the Hybrid Web Container (part of the Sybase Unwired Platform), which was the development framework for the InnoJam.

There are incremental technology improvements, then there are products that create an inflection point for an entire industry. One of the gating factors for mobile application development has been the need for device specific development skill sets. If you want to build apps on an iPhone, you need to know Objective C, as well as xCode. If you also want to develop on an Android device, you need to start completely over in terms of your development skill set. This is an adequate development model, but it puts steep limits on the available talent pool for mobile device development. On the other hand, you have this vast ecosystem of web developers (outnumbering device developers 10 to 1), who have been watching the mobility juggernaut pass them by.

Not anymore.

The core value of the Hybrid Web Container is that it allows web developers to build mobile device applications that look and feel like a “native” application. By using an HTML/ Javascript/CSS “container” architecture, Sybase has brought industry standards to what had previously been a (nearly) proprietary model for apps development. Or put less technically, you can now use web developers to build mobile applications that look and feel like they were built specifically for an iPhone or Android device. Or put even less technically, the potential development pool of programmers who can build mobile apps has just gone up by a factor of 10.

Mobile technology, perhaps more than any other type of technology, is driven by the compelling nature of the application being accessed. As cool as iPhones are, people buy then to get access to the apps, not to make phone calls. The compelling event is the app, not the device. With this new capability, Sybase has not only shortened the development cycle by a huge margin, we’ve also opened the floodgates to a vast increase in mobilized applications, which will in turn drive broader and faster adoption of mobility across the enterprise and their associated supply chains.

First, this is not hype. While the overall incidence of attacks has not gone up much, the hacker groups are noisier (braggier) so it seems like more is going on. However, in addition, the pattern seems to be expanding to include smartphones and tablets. People have historically understood the need for security on their PC; most of the time some sort of security software is actually included when you buy your PC, and this has been going on long enough that it’s become part of the background noise of the technology landscape. However, people look at their iPhone, or Android device, and see a phone. So here is the problem: those are not phones. Referring to them as smartphones is a misnomer, they are not phones, they are computers that happen to be able to make phone calls, and conveniently fit in your pocket, just like a phone. People are making a huge mistake if they think they don’t need to secure the device in their pocket. This also applied to tablets. Why? Same operating system. There are slight variants between the iOS on an iPhone and an iPad, but its basically the same OS. Same thing with Android devices from manufacturers that offer a range of form factors, smartphones to tablets-all running effectively the same version of Android OS. If you want to exploit a computer, go in through an application (usually assisted by the user clicking on a suspect link), which provides access to the OS, and start hacking away. Same exact process works on a mobile device, the main difference being that the majority of PCs are secured, and the majority of smartphones and tablets are not. Think this will be a problem?

So who is more at risk, the consumer, or the enterprise? It depends on the intention of the hacker. If it a denial of service type of thing, then the enterprise is a tempting target; look at Sony’s month-long spank-a-thon. This is effectively macho posturing by the hackers, who target high profile sites to show their “prowess”. If it’s a straightforward identity theft type of thing, then the devices themselves provide a nice gateway to the goodies normally found in sites accessed by a mobile device, such as on-line banking or Facebook (which is now more frequently accessed by mobile devices than by PCs). Given the strategic arc of access to on-line information resources (6 billion mobile devices in play, and counting), this will become a significant issue, and we would be well served to get ahead of it as quickly as we can. If you are an enterprise, and you provide your employees mobile access to company information resources, you HAVE to secure those devices, and I mean right now. If you are a consumer, it is very much in your interest to talk to your carrier about what options they offer for securing the device. You wouldn’t leave your house or car unlocked, right? And yet, its highly likely that your mobile device, which can provide access to all sorts of things that would be of interest to a hacker, is sitting there, wide open.

The pervasive trends of mobile computing and data analytics are rapidly approaching a point of singularity, and when combined, these technologies will prove to be transformative on an unprecedented scale.

Analytics is enjoying a renaissance thanks to the reanimating effect of mobile computing. Accessing complex data sets on a pocket-sized device forces an extreme prioritization of information, creating a layer of abstraction and haiku-like interpretation that is permanently redefining how we interact with information resources. Because this new framework is particularly compelling for data visualization, we can expect massive,game-changing shifts in the presentation of analytic data in the near future.

For example, sales managers will have access to real-time performance data— in a succinct, mobilized roll-up — that can help them optimize sales and marketing strategies on the fly. Organizations that understand the mechanics of this transformation and that act quickly to leverage the rising tide of mobile analytics will wield a severe and effective weapon.

Changing the Face of Data

With so much media emphasis on the growth of mobile computing, it would be easy to miss the even faster growth occurring in the analytics space. Analytics is driven by data, and the amount of data available for analysis is increasing at a staggering rate. For example, RFID tags that once tracked the number of pallets in a container now track each unit of product individually. Meanwhile, 500 million Facebook users upload a daily barrage of personal minutiae that is subsequently forwarded and re-forwarded ad infinitum. Fueled by trends like these, massive increases in data volume are providing unlimited fodder for analytic applications.

Mobile technology isn’t just changing the presentation side of data; it is changing the lifecycle of enterprise data as well. If automating a process changes it, mobilizing it changes it even more. Mobilizing a workflow improves the operation of that workflow, making it faster and more efficient. Thousands of workflows are within every enterprise and hundreds more are within every supply chain and distribution channel. The raw potential for transformation would be difficult to overestimate.

Raising the Value of Business Processes

Over the long term, advances in mobile analytics will provide much better visibility and transparency into how an enterprise is performing in realtime. Mobile access will mean managers will access key performance indicators (KPIs) more frequently. But more importantly, advances in data display will mean the KPIs will provide better performance insight. In the short term, there are likely to be some complexities as the back-end systems that hold the data are integrated into the middleware and front-end where access to the information is controlled, but in the long run, this is clearly a rising-tide effect.

While improved data quality is the real objective of these mobilized analytic applications, speed will be another benefit. Making BI metrics available to workers at virtually any moment of the day will increase performance efficiency across the organization and improve response time for downstream processes. Moreover, providing critical performance data at the point of decision vastly increases the value of the process to the enterprise.

These changes will be felt not only inside the organization but by customers as well. A well-informed worker or workgroup is in a better position to provide timely and relevant customer support, which can only have a positive effect on customer satisfaction.

Changing the State of the Art

Current mobile analytic offerings are simple extensions of desktop BI platforms, which enable a user to consume an existing desktop report or dashboard on a mobile device. These first-generation mobile analytic products are a step in the right direction, but they fail to seize the opportunities that mobilized enterprise data creates. They offer the same old reports on a small form factor.

The next generation of business intelligence applications will attempt to optimize the visualization of complex data in a limited space. Brevity will be essential; between the increasing amounts of data available for analysis and the smaller display space to visualize the data, we should see some interesting and innovative shifts in interpretation.

Democratizing Intelligence

Once they hit the business mainstream, these second-generation mobile analytic tools will have the effect of democratizing business intelligence; making precise, real-time data available to a wide variety of business users at any given moment. Organizations that move quickly (and we mean right now) will enjoy a competitive advantage that could take their entire enterprise to a whole new level of performance.

To earn the first-mover advantage, enterprises need to prime their IT infrastructures today so that future mobile application deployments can happen swiftly and securely. Business and IT leaders need to envision a fully mobilized future, including a clear understanding of how internal processes are likely to change when mobilized. They must decide how they will secure their mission-critical enterprise data, and set their governance policies accordingly.

A mobile enterprise application platform is a proactive IT strategy that can help enterprises reap the full potential of mobilized data. Because it fully integrates with existing enterprise applications and data, a platform will enable the next generation of mobile analytics to blur the lines between transactions, analytics and collaboration. Organizations that adopt this strategy will be well positioned to provide the mobile workforce with context-aware decision-support capabilities that provide insight to judicious action — all done in real time, and from anywhere.

The next step will be to undertake a strict prioritization of data. Looking at business intelligence data on a four-inch screen moves visualization to the top of the queue. IT and business analysts must focus on the crux of the data and know which data sets will provide the most value once mobilized.

The corporations our children will work in will be unrecognizable compared to the ones we know today. Business as we know it will move much faster, with pervasive group dynamics that adjust in real time to massive, dynamic information flows. It is our privilege to experience the origin of this exciting future as it emerges from the alchemy of mobile communication and staid, unsexy mobile analytics.