Good bye T-Mobile

As of yesterday I ended my long and somewhat painful relationship with T-Mobile as my mobile carrier.   To understand how I got to this point, let me share a bit of history about my experiences with some different carriers along the way.  I am probably not unlike many other corporate users, bouncing around to different carriers as the whims of your corporate purchasing group change with that years new and fresh renegotiated contract.

I started early on with a personal contract with Cingular as part of a package I was able to receive with my home land line.  A job change and I ended up with the opportunity to move to a company phone, really it was just a method for them to move to predictable costs for this service rather than waiting for the surprise of my monthly expenses. It was beautiful relationship and I was able to enjoy reliable service across the Northeast.

Soon however I was given a temptation that no business person could resist at the time.  Move to our new carrier plans and you will get a Blackberry.  I had to weigh this decision seriously, downside I was moving to T-Mobile, so what if I didn't have service at my home or on the 11 mile drive to my office, I was getting a Blackberry.  So what if T-Mobile's version of WiFi calling didn't work as advertised even after upgrading my Internet connection and wireless routers.  So what if I had to go to the center of my town, within 1/4 mile of the tower to make calls, at least I could synchronize my email on my WiFi network (most of the time).  At least at my office there was a strong signal, and when I traveled to major metropolitan areas I was rocking.  The end of this T-Mobile relationship came to an abrupt end when I moved to back to being home office based and the 30 mile ride to the new office meant no coverage whatsoever.

Given the choice I moved to Verizon.  Why Verizon, because I craved  the status of  corporate american's new best friend, the iPhone.  Yes in a moment of weakness and confusion, after a decision to move away from Blackberry, by my company they issued me an iPhone.  Woot!  I was living large and had coverage at my house.  This was a lovely relationship that soured over time when I soon realized the limitations voice calling and data on a CDMA network.  It wasn't often that I needed to do a voice call and request data, but when I did it seemed to be at the worst possible times, usually with a customer or my boss.  Oh that iPhone was a thing of beauty hobbled by poor wireless technology.  Even worse our company was now deep in the throws of a full scale migration to T-Mobile again (great contract) and now Android or Windows phones.

And this is how I ended up back at T-Mobile.  OK most would say, go get the Android phone you are a technology company, but no, I could do that I was an advocate for the common man at the office. I wanted to show them the issues that our users would face on a Windows phone using some of newest corporate applications.  So I settled into the flagship Windows phone by Nokia on the T-Mobile network.  OK so T-Mobile had fixed (somewhat) WiFi calling, my house was now a island of high speed broadband and WiFi (yes I have kids with an Xbox), so I should be able to do my job, at least while at the home office.  To my dismay however, dead spots and drops continued to be a nuisance on my trip to the office, in-laws, vacation, etc.  OK I will admit the T-Mobile network was good in metropolitan areas, OK great on 4G/LTE, my issue was all other places 2G was still common place. Now this shouldn't have been too much of an issue, but the voice quality for calls was shoddy, I found myself pulling off to the side of the road (hands free calling) to continue calls because I knew exactly where the drops would happen if I didn't, and Smart phones had really gotten smart and you became fairly dependent on them for a number of applications (Ok I love Nav on the phone).  I figured that the holes and lack of performance in the T-Mobile network couldn't last long (year 1),  some holes did get filled but only at 2G speed (year 2) and well when I got an iPhone 6 (yes I was cool again for my kids) I figured by now (year 3) T-Mobile would be blasting away on 4G networks to satisfy the demand of all the iPhone users.  Oh how wrong I was, tweets, board posts and digs at our T-Mobile rep, left me with a lot of "any days now", but still left me with the inability to hold a call or use my smart phone in my town (of 24,000 people).  Oddly enough I felt like nothing had changed at all over the years that I had been on T-Mobile, and for a technology company this was shame.

So earlier this week my work finally moved me back to AT&T (nee Cingular) and yes I have service at home, on my way work and even in my town.  Still curious how long of a window I have before people realize I do have service, but for the time being I will keep my phone silent and pretend I am on T-Mobile.

Why Shadow IT is Good for Providers - Part II

The common perception is that Shadow IT means people, however, Shadow IT can be technology that fills a need that enterprise IT is not currently satisfying.  Driven by innovation most of the technologies began as consumer products, seeking a broader adoption, they often provided features or capabilities that were desired by the business user.  Some of the first devices really were convenience devices that digitized an element of work that was done an analog fashion.  One of the earliest examples of this digitization of the analog world for the consumer was the personal digital assistant (PDA), most notably the Palm Pilot.   The PDA foreshadowed the explosion of bring your own devices, as it was carried by users in addition to their corporate devices.  Initially there was a reluctance by corporate IT to support these devices, but since they were most effective when they could synchronize with corporate devices, IT compromised and offered support for the application that did synchronization but not the device itself.  It also started another trend, devices that were user installable, user configurable and user supported. IT failed to see this changing dynamic in the work place and missed an opportunity to drive other service changes.  While the PDA provided value they were still a niche and didn’t gain the wide spread adoption many felt they were destined.  That began to change when the features of the PDA were combined with the mobile phone and a new type of device emerged, the smartphone. It posed a new problem for IT, not only did it offer the same set of applications and data synchronization, but it could also now be directly connected to the corporate intranet.  Making the problem even more extreme for IT was the significant amount of choice available in the market place.  IT could either embrace the choice and drive the support responsibilities to the user, or like IT is prone to do consolidate and standardize.  IT chose the latter and begin to treat the smartphone like a corporate asset, this era became known Blackberry Jail.

It would still be sometime before IT could embrace choice and BYOD.  During this time some good things did happen to evolve mobility in the workplace.  IT figured out how to secure the perimeter, manage access, content and physical connections through approved devices.  IT also began to understand the need to rethink their applications because of the new way of working that mobility afforded the user.  Also during this time the options for smartphones exploded, previous market leader Blackberry was left by the side by feature rich IOS and Android devices that took market leading positions. Users were not deterred by IT’s reluctance to support these devices and continued to secure, use and support them, they formed informal support groups, sharing tips, tricks and methods to use the devices in a corporate setting.  While similar to crowd sourcing, this was the first real indication that social support could play an important role in delivering a delighted user experience.  It was another indicator that traditional support settings were changing as the user gained more control over how they managed their experience.  Sensing an opportunity, a new class of device management companies emerged, mobile device management offered IT a platform of inclusion for the devices of choice.  Not only was IT under pressure, but service providers also need to adapt to this changing environment.  Where traditional managed services focused on management of the device, and anticipated a one user to one device ratio, it was becoming more evident that users are using multiple devices.   The user context was changing, it wasn’t support my device, it was support me, my data and applications.  Users had already ready adopted choose your own device, they were willing to support their choice of phone, tablet and even in many cases laptops, what they needed was ubiquity across those devices, convenience across those devices.  Atos responded to this challenge, like other aspects of its service business, it started to transform its workplace business.  It rethought the paradigm and instead of putting the device at the center, where traditional management models typically focus, it put the user at the center.  The focus was the user work styles, their data and applications, their personal preferences and how they wanted to work.  Enabling this is the Digital Hub, an online internet-connected environment, which provides anytime anywhere access to the user applications and data.  Engineering this environment is the digital mesh which begins to integrate the digital and physical worlds.  Finally, the physical world is the devices we use, the contextual environment we work in.  Driving the realization of the future workplace is the result of the convergence of forces in the industry.   First is the cloud, it provided the secure framework to deliver to the user their personal and corporate data to any device, anytime.   Once data was there the applications followed.  Not only were applications evolving and moving to the cloud, many of these applications were going native on the different devices.  Unleashed from their traditional boundaries, this new wave of applications became the second force enabling this future workplace. With data and applications on the end points, the ability to manage and secure the devices become the third wave.  Modern mobile device management software matured and evolved to unified device management software, giving IT the ability to provide consistency of management and application of policy across all the devices in their portfolio.  

Why Shadow IT is Good for Service Providers

Why Shadow IT is Good for Service Providers.

Hidden somewhere in the line of business (LOB), Shadow IT is playing an important role in delivering measurable and positive outcomes for the business.  Historically, Shadow IT was that person embedded in the line of business providing service and support that usually circumvented traditional IT support channels.  What they demonstrated was a deep intimacy in the functions around the LOB and an aptitude for solving IT problems.  Usually a walk up and shoulder tap away, they provided immediate, personalized service and attempted to solve the problem in the first time.  With a deep wealth of tribal knowledge, they also provided preventative and proactive support as they could identify emerging trends localized to their community of interest.  Many times they were able to direct users to remediate problems on their own, usually by publishing a list of common fixes or communicating a set of common steps. As the LOB would attest they had higher degrees of satisfaction and customer intimacy with this service model.  Either driven by the perception of improving cost or having better controls, many IT groups reigned in Shadow IT, either by eliminating any kind of elevated privileges they might have or by assimilating the person into the functional IT group.  While some would have argued that this move was done to improve operational efficiencies, what they failed to understand was the fact that it was still a service business and still needed a way to delight the end-user. 

Could this intimate service model be sustained?  One look at Apple and its Genius Bar shows you how high touch, customer intimate service settings can be highly successful.  Not only were people willing to wait for this experience, they were willing to wait for extended periods of time to have the problem resolved the first time.  But for service providers, sustaining the model meant not only offering this customer intimate setting, but also being able to provide this in a cost effective manner.  At Atos we began modeling this concept some time ago at a number of customers as the Atos Performance Bar. Ideal for the campus setting or HQ building, once again was the enterprise user able to do a walk up and do a shoulder tap and get immediate service.  The positive impact to customer satisfaction was instantaneous, as expected customer intimacy and context made for a better experience.  However, the question arose could the service be cost effective in light of customer’s desires to lower costs through outsourcing?  What Atos had to do was rethink the traditional roles in the outsourcing relationship, especially those servicing the Workplace Bar.  We know from modeling the service there would be peaks in the service hours and that staffing would have to match the demand to meet expectations, we also knew that during the off-hours that work would have to redirected to this highly skilled work force.  To solve the efficiency problem, Atos employed a new kind of worker, one that was comfortable working face-to-face, being dispatched to service a user on campus, and taking a call redirected from the service desk.  We also needed problem solvers that could take the tribal knowledge from the Workplace Bar and turn it into actionable information. 

Experience during the days of Shadow IT and from the Workplace Bar demonstrated that intimacy and context would build enough trust that the same users that were comfortable in the walk up experience were just as comfortable with self-service.  Self-service, long a desire of both internal IT and service providers, was always difficult to achieve, not because there weren't available technologies, but more so because users were reluctant to adopt this change.  This continued evolution in the service model represented a larger change in thinking, greater customer intimacy would lead to greater customer satisfaction, but also this intimacy and trust could build a culture were the end-users was willing to self-help and problem solve.  Also a new wealth of data was entering the service desk and changing the way the interactions were managed.  So much so that this change had Atos rethinking the Service Desk itself.  With these new channels, changing behaviors of the end-users it became evident that the service desk was evolving, and for Atos it has evolved into the Interaction Center.  The Interaction Center is the service and analytic hub for the IT organization that supports the service experience for all users. What Shadow IT had taught Atos was while the service was important, it was how the interaction was managed that mattered, and properly engaged interactions lead to delighted users.

Notes from Intels Developer Forum

A small group from Atos NAM attended Intel’s Developer Forum to meet with different members of Intel’a leadership team as we continue to strengthen and enhance our partnership.  As a background, in NAM we are working closely with Intel to help us enhance our portfolio by creating differentiated services through the use of their technology.  You are probably aware of the work we did with Intel to validate our belief that vPro technology could be widely used to reduce a large number of incidents in our customer environment, and also eliminate costly dispatches.  We wrote a white paper you can find here http://intel.ly/1qRtvlV and then built a case study,http://intel.ly/1sZlxYF based upon lessons learned from Towers Watson. 

Well we are taking this success and building on it as we move to Gartner IT/Symposium in Orlando.  At Symposium Intel and Atos will be sponsoring the CIO dinner, where leaders from the IT industry will convene and learn more about this fruitful partnership.  At Symposium itself we will be keeping with the theme of digital transformation and showcasing the Wireless Workplace, Collaboration and End-Point Protection, all with support and technologies from Intel.  Shortly we will publish Innovation Briefs that will discuss how these technologies can help transform our customers.

At IDF, Atos was able to validate that our strategic intent around many of the corporate initiatives we have decided are critical to our success are spot on.  We know that innovation will drive our customers to transform and with our current offerings and Intel technologies we now we will be able deliver on the vision.  In the area of workplace services the strengthening of Intel Security will only mean enhanced security services that can be leveraged through our commitment to McAfee end-point technologies.  New form factors and features will allow us to start to build new capabilities around the workplace of the future.  As wireless docking and charging, geo-fencing and location based services mature, companies will be untethered from the traditional work boundaries and design new future workspaces.  These new workspaces will open up new opportunities for collaboration, and as Real Sense technology, opens up the possibility of gesture to remove physical boundaries in virtual collaboration.  I would be remiss if I didn’t mention some silicon.  The new Core M vPro processor is going to enable a whole new set of managed enterprise devices that will give users a tablet-like experience in managed 2 in 1 form factor.  It will be interesting to see what comes out from Intel as a reference design.  On a geekier note the device that stood out to me was the Dell Venue 8 -7000 – A new tablet coming from Dellhttp://cnet.co/1nY1x3j

While the show was full of the traditional workplace technologies you would expect from Intel and the supporting ODM and OEM players, to me the most interesting push from Intel was their constant reminder that they are the 4th largest software house in the world by number of developers.  This was most evident when they began their push into Software Defined Infrastructure.   In Diane Bryant’s Mega Session she captures the current Intel developments in the area of SDI and Rack Scale Architecture.  Rack scale architectures, which she believes is the next step forward in software defined systems.  As she noted “The company has been working with a "growing list" of OEDMs, OEMs, ISVs and open source organizations to replace traditional architectures with pooled and disaggregated computing, networking and storage resources using modular hardware.” She went on to say “As you can imagine the majority of IT organizations do not have the data center scale nor the deep engineering expertise so they can develop a next generation data center solution like this. It is through industry collaboration and innovation that these kinds of transformation occur."  This statement supports the belief at Atos that we need to aggressively pursue our Software Defined Data Center Strategy, as Intel is willing to make bets on partners who are aggressively moving this agenda forward.  In a breakfast session with Shannon Poulin, Intel Data Center Group vice president, he stated that Intel has plans to connect with management tools from OpenStack, Microsoft and VMware, allowing workloads to be allocate to optimized hardware.  He envisioned an environment where “Eventually the software will demand the capability to land on a piece of hardware that can accelerate its workload. In order to do that you need both the platform to know what it is capable of, and then the software to know what it wants, with some orchestration software that can act as matchmaker and put the two together.”  In our session he went on to say that it will take unique system integrators who can understand all the dependencies through the stack to make this environment work. 

My Summer with a Chromebook

This summer I decided to see if it was possible to be productive using an alternative client as my primary device.  My choices were a MacBook Air, Dell #Venue 11 and #Chromebook.  I knew for the most part that the Air and Venue could keep my connected and working as they had versions of the common applications I used ready and available.  What intrigued me more was the Chromebook.  The machine of choice was a #HP Chromebook 14, in what my daughter described as shocking white!  This #Intel based machine offered a fast processor and clear 14 inch screen, while it has the option to have a cellular-radio, this version only came with Wifi.

So with a good Wifi-connection and Chrome in tow I headed out.  The first thing I did was jump on my current laptop and login to my Google Account and synchronize all my important bookmarks.  This was an immediate help as with my first login to the Chromebook I had all of my important bookmarks there ready to be tested.  I begin by testing my most commonly used Atos bookmarks - and without fail I was able to navigate anywhere in Atos that didn't need URA.  We are lucky to have most of important work sites available to us via the browser but alas I am afraid that as we continue to roll-out the PKI cards that this might soon fall by the way (That is for another post and discussion I am sure).  So a big check in the box as I was able get working and access my most commonly used Atos sites, Yeah Timecards and Expenses.  The next thing was access to all my documents and files.  Some time ago I made the decision to move my personal and professional data to the cloud.  Since Atos had provided me a ShareFile account I used that application/service to store and synchronize all my professional data across all my devices. This gave me immediate access to enterprise data.  OneDrive from Microsoft was used to store all my personal data – now on the Chromebook I had access to all my data.  The problem here really is that Google and the Chromebook make it much easier to store and find data on Google Drive – I wasn’t inclined to make the switch as I still have an Air, Ultrabook, WinPhone and Venue all configured and synchronized to these locations, especially for my work data.  I figured I would see if I could overcome this obstacle.

The next thing I did was to look at my productivity applications, which really meant Microsoft Office.  I was happy to see that Microsoft provided free, but scaled down versions, of the most common office applications in the Google Chrome store.  I can only believe that as Chromebooks gain more of a foothold in the market place and Microsoft keeps to the promise and vision of mobility and cloud that we will see Office 365 available natively on Chromebooks, until then I will share what limitations I uncovered. I found the scaled down version provided me with the necessary capabilities to do simple content creation and edit already developed content.  I probably wouldn’t have started net new content in these tools for large documents or complex presentations. My biggest challenge, was the location of most of my content for work.  As I stated earlier, work content was in #ShareFile and the online version of Office for Chrome looks for documents in #OneDrive.  To be able to successfully edit content I first had to download it from ShareFile and then upload it to OneDrive. Ugh was one way to describe it – I could have solved this by moving to Google Drive (plausible and doable) and downloading the Google Drive sync applications, but alas my trusty Windows Phone would have missed out on all the fun.  Also I felt comfortable knowing that my critical work data was protected on ShareFile and that if one of my devices was lost or stolen I could quickly protect that data.  An observer in my venture said I would have just stuck with Google Docs and that might have simplified things, but I wanted to stay as close to the experience I would have with my company provided device or the BYOD devices which all ran my Microsoft Office suite of applications.

As remote/virtual workers next thing I had to worry about was communications.  Since we had rushed the machine out the door we ordered one without a cellular radio, so I was limited to Wifi.  Here is where I will give #Comcast #Xfinity kudos, they have a nifty little applications that shows you where their hotspots are located (and they have a lot in the US), and unbeknownst to their subscribers they have been slowly opening up their customer wireless networks to allow open connections from Xfinity subscribers.  If you are a Comcast subscriber for their broadband Internet see if there isn’t a wireless network with SSID of Xfinity broadcasting at your house.  My fall back was that my #T-Mobile phone has been provisioned to be a Hotspot in a pinch.  Good if you are in a major metropolitan area, or close to major highways, bad if you are in rural area.  I would recommend that if you are looking at the Chromebook you order it with the LTE radio and a carrier that has good coverage.  The other part of being virtual was communicating with my co-workers.  While it was easy to exchange e-mails with Web Outlook and collaborate in blueKiwi the biggest limitation and the one that killed me the most was the lack of Lync.   There is an app in the Chrome Store that promises #Lync support in the future, it still isn’t there.  Well at least I had Lync on my phone, no wait, I don’t.  I had other communications options, but that none that would bridge to our Lync systems.  I used Google Voice to dial into Lync Meetings, but that was just a stop gap measure.  Here ultimately was the roadblock that put me back on my traditional device – the lack of Instant Messaging via Lync.  So maybe Microsoft will solve this when they deliver Office 365 (hopeful) or the guys at #gUnify, a nice Sip-based #WebRTC client for Chromebooks will get their Lync integration working.  The WebRTC client is interesting and something I know we are exploring elsewhere at Atos.

So some simple observations.  The Intel-based HP Chromebook is nice device, has incredible battery life (9 hours+), a bright clear screen at 14”, and responsive keyboard, a little bit finicky touchpad (you do need to figure out how to right click).  I was surprised that it was so damn heavy, but maybe as time goes buy they will change – and as I said earlier I would have ordered it with an LTE-radio.   If the web is your world then this device is perfect for you, if you have some content already created you need to determine if Google Docs, Drive, etal could support your needs – if you need to communicate with the rest of the world, then you better hope someone develops a nifty solution (and gets rich).  So summer has ended and I back to using my other devices, but I still find myself grabbing the Chromebook, because I know all my links are there, it will always have a charge and well my kids, they are on the Mac.