Bosch Healthcare, GreatCall strategically partner (US/Canada)

Last week, Bosch Healthcare in the US announced a strategic partnership with GreatCall, best known for its Jitterbug simplified mobile phone/call plans and 5 Star mobile-based urgent response/PERS services targeted to the senior consumer. The joint offering is to be rolled out later this year (Bosch/GreatCall release). Bosch’s mobile moves should come as no surprise to our readers, who learned late last fall that Bosch had developed a similar mobile strategic partnership with Doro, the GreatCall of Europe, for Germany and Switzerland initially [TA 16 Nov 12].  Bosch US also added a partner last fall in the hot area of medication compliance, MedMinder, whose Maya mobile-based medication reminder system is integratable with Bosch’s in-home Health Buddy and their T400 clinical Telehealth System [TA 26 Oct 12].  You could say that this indicates that Bosch is ‘mobilizing’ its monitoring into consumer-friendly platforms both in North America and Europe.

Update 27 Feb: David Doherty pointed out on his mHealth group on LinkedIn (members only) that judging by these moves, Bosch is positioning itself as a substantial ally to mobile companies seeking to add telehealth features, which has proved to be a sticky issue for the latter. (Editors’ note: if you are a LinkedIn member and not a member of David’s mHealth group, we recommend joining it for the topics and discussions.)

Related: On his mHealth Insight blog yesterday, David notes Doro’s survey indicating that 50% of over 65+ are interested in smartphones. As a result, Doro is introducing a featurephone that incorporates cloud-based smartphone features, along with an secure online control portal accessible by the user and authorized others. This contradicts the direction that mobile companies are taking here in the US:  the target market for smartphones ends at about 45, so load up those smartphones with complexity, incomprehensible apps (‘cool stuff’) and expensive plans.  If applicable to the increasingly saturated US market, there’s an opportunity to open up the market by taking down barriers–phone, plan cost, visibility and ease of use, adding off-phone control access. Is this a message for GreatCall?  

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Comments

  1. Hi Donna,

    Thanks for your mention of and enthusiasm for the Linkedin Group.

    It’s a shame that the US mobile operators are still largely ignoring the senior mobile market but the AARP is doing some interesting things that are well worth following and is involved in a big push later this year.

    “Is this a message for GreatCall?”

    I don’t think Doro’s are yet in the Main Street stores but they are selling quite well in the US already and there’s a technical reason that the GreatCall approach (building on the Apple iPhone platform) would need to be changed in order to emulate Doro as the Doro Experience builds on the Android OS so that it can take a lot more control of the device (officially you can’t reconfigure the interface on an Apple phone in this way).