Frontline Mobility Edge

Hosted by BlueFletch

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Episodes

Latest episode

Oct 2026

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EN-US

About the show

Frontline Mobility Edge takes a look at mobility in the enterprise, focusing on workforce devices, business applications, and the technology behind them.

Listen to episodes

60 recent

October 15, 202638 min

How to Get Better at Using AI

Brett Cooper sits down with BlueFletch CEO Richard Makerson for a different kind of Frontline Mobility Edge episode: not about devices, but about the skill underneath every good IT decision, consulting engagement, and AI prompt. Richard and Brett trace the skill back through years of consulting and software work: a hackathon project for the Atlanta Food Bank that assumed users had smartphones (they didn't), the "5 Whys" method borrowed from Toyota's lean process, and the habit of stating assumptions out loud before they quietly wreck a project. They connect all of it to how people actually get value out of AI today: why vague prompts get vague answers, why the first AI response is often wrong, and why the real risk isn't bad AI, it's outsourcing your thinking to the first plausible answer. Richard shares his "CRIT" framework for prompting and his go-to closing moves ("what else?" and "what's next?"), and the two talk through how to spot AI slop, why ego is the biggest blocker to good questions, and why being present still beats being clever.

September 8, 202630 min

iPhone vs. Purpose-Built Android in Healthcare | Will Mobley (BradyIPS) | Frontline Mobility Edge

On this episode of the BlueFletch Frontline Mobility Edge podcast, Brett Cooper sits down with Will Mobley of Brady Intelligent Productivity Solutions (formerly Honeywell PSS) to talk about what actually makes or breaks enterprise mobility deployments in healthcare. Will shares why frontline worker experience is the real predictor of a rollout's success, how to think past the spec sheet when evaluating devices, the true total cost of ownership versus sticker price, and why disinfection and ergonomics matter more than people expect. The conversation also dives into how to bring skeptical frontline staff on board during a rollout, why iPhone still dominates healthcare, and where that's starting to shift toward purpose-built Android devices.

August 10, 202642 min

Why Companies Are Leaving iOS for Android

Brett Cooper sits down with Richard Makerson (CEO, BlueFletch) and Alan Lampa (CTO, BlueFletch) to talk through what actually happens when a company moves its frontline fleet from iOS to Android. Richard breaks down why the economics catch up with iOS over time, why device options across Android OEMs matter more than people think, and the WWDC story that nearly got BlueFletch fired from a client project. Alan covers the technical side: app lifecycle differences, Android Enterprise security, and the mistakes teams make when they try to port an iOS app one-to-one instead of rethinking the experience. Reach out to BlueFletch at bluefletch.com if your team is planning an iOS to Android migration.

August 3, 202637 min

Ron Frieson (COO of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta) on Leadership, Legacy & AI

Ron Frieson, COO of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, sits down with Rick Makerson on location to talk about the career path that took him from BellSouth's executive ranks to running operations for a system that serves over a million patients a year. Ron talks about being BellSouth's first Black president of state operations, becoming the company's first Chief Diversity Officer, and the family legacy behind the Frieson Black Cultural Center at the University of Tennessee. He also breaks down how Children's thinks about technology at the new Arthur M. Blank Hospital, from RTLS boards replacing whiteboards to AI scribes cutting down physician documentation time. Ron explains why healthcare's slower pace of adoption isn't always a bad thing. Subscribe for more Frontline Mobility Edge episodes! #FrontlineMobilityEdge #HealthcareIT #ChildrensHealthcareOfAtlanta #DigitalHealth #HealthcareLeadership #AIinHealthcare

July 13, 202638 min

AI Failure Rates, Vision Tech & Robots in the Warehouse | Zebra Technology's Mark Rogers

Brett Cooper talks with Mark Rogers, Director of Market Intelligence at Zebra Technologies, about where AI and frontline hardware are actually headed. Not the hype, but the data. Mark breaks down Zebra's research process, why AI project abandonment rates keep climbing, the healthcare divide between physicians and nurses on ambient AI, on-device AI co-processors, shadow IT, vision vs. RFID, and whether "robot management" becomes the frontline job of the future. → Inside Zebra's four-pillar market intelligence function: planning, customer experience, insights, and analyst relations → Why AI project abandonment rates are tracking higher than the 30% prediction from two years ago → Data governance and silo data remain the biggest blocker: 2 out of 3 retailers still operate with siloed data → Physicians are bullish on ambient AI scribes, but nurses are pushing back — same industry, different personas → On-device AI co-processors (Zebra's TC5-series, EM45) are unlocking local vision and audio models → Shadow IT is repeating itself with AI tools; employees reach for the better tool even without governance → Zebra says it's "more of a hardware company than ever" as physical devices show up everywhere from self-checkout to Dick's Sporting Goods → Vision technology vs. RFID: where each makes sense depends on the customer's tier and use case → Smaller companies may leapfrog larger ones by skipping legacy system baggage entirely → By 2030, 20% of managers will have at least one robot in their org structure

July 9, 202635 min

Green Screens, RF Guns & AI Voice: The Modern Warehouse with Hardesty Technologies

Brett Cooper sits down with Joe Leucht of Hardesty Technologies (formerly Barcode Depot) to break down what's actually changing on the warehouse floor. Joe has spent nearly 20 years in data capture and reseller channels, and he goes deep on why green screen terminals refuse to die, how tablets are replacing RF guns and VMUs, the real cost of lost devices, and where AI, voice, and robots are headed over the next five years. → Hardesty Technologies rebranded from Barcode Depot to reflect its shift into Android, software, and emerging tech → Green screens aren't dying because they stopped working. They're dying because younger frontline workers expect touchscreens → Tablets are taking over two spaces: floor manager dashboards and forklift-mounted VMU replacements → Honeywell's new tablet/VMU hybrid mount signals where vehicle-mount hardware is headed → Virtual lockers (smart charging cradles) are replacing bulky locker systems for device accountability → AI-driven voice picking is getting more conversational and pairing with vision/camera systems → Robots won't replace frontline workers. They're bridging old systems into "rocket ships"

June 23, 202632 min

Why Frontline Devices Keep Failing (and the Downtime Cost Nobody Tracks)

Most IT dashboards show a green light while frontline devices are quietly failing out in the field. In this episode of the Frontline Mobility Edge, Brett Cooper sits down with Gary Lee of B2M Solutions to dig into why frontline mobility keeps breaking, what it costs, and why your MDM was never built to catch it. Gary Lee has spent decades at the front of major technology shifts and runs B2M's annual State of Enterprise Mobility report. Gary explains the gap between managing devices and actually understanding them, and why that gap gets more expensive every year. In this conversation: → Why MDM and mobile intelligence are two different tools ("the difference between a hammer and a screwdriver") → The app update that reports success while devices drop into reboot loops in the field → Why frontline work stoppages climbed from 51% to 81% since 2019, and why IT ticket counts hide the real story → The downtime cost most CFOs have never had the data to see → How Honeywell, Zebra, and other OEMs fit into a hardware-agnostic, customer-choice strategy → Where AI is moving next: edge processing on the device and finding the needle in the data haystack → Gary Lee's predictions for the 2029 State of Mobility report #FrontlineMobilityEdge #EnterpriseMobility #FrontlineWorkers #MDM #DeviceManagement #MobileDEX #DigitalEmployeeExperience #ITOperations

June 11, 202639 min

MDM vs. MTD: What Most Companies Get Wrong About Mobile Security

Most companies manage their mobile devices. Far fewer actually secure them. There's a difference, and it matters more than ever. Brett Cooper sits down with Paul Troisi, founder of Troy Mobility, to break down the gap between mobile device management (MDM) and mobile threat defense (MTD), why device count isn't the same as risk, and what a real mobile security strategy looks like from day one through day two and beyond. In this episode: → MDM vs. MTD vs. UEM: What the acronyms actually mean and where they fall short → The mobile threat landscape in 2025: phishing, smishing, quishing, and app vulnerabilities → BYOD vs. corporate-owned: The privacy policies most IT teams don't fully understand → Why "set it and forget it" is the most dangerous approach to mobile security → Zero trust and why mobile devices need the same security parity as laptops → How Troy Mobility runs a mobility assessment (and what it reveals) Whether you're running 50 devices or 5,000, risk drives the strategy, not fleet size. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The Frontline Mobility Edge is hosted by Brett Cooper, COO of BlueFletch. New episodes explore how enterprise mobility, security, and identity are reshaping the frontline workforce.

May 13, 202633 min

The State of Enterprise MDM/UEM in 2026 (feat. Dipesh Hinduja, Stratix Corporation)

Brett Cooper sits down with Dipesh Hinduja, Senior Director of Mobile Solutions at Stratix Corporation, to break down the state of enterprise mobile device management in 2026. Stratix is the largest pure-mobility managed services provider in the country, managing millions of devices across their Mobile Operations Center, and they've partnered with BlueFletch for over 15 years. They cover how frontline device management differs from knowledge worker endpoints, why security models built for corporate laptops are finally reaching shared-device environments, and the real operational burden most companies underestimate when deploying an MDM at scale (including those 2 AM change windows nobody wants to own). Other topics include mixed-fleet vs. single-OEM strategies, Samsung's foldable play for field workers, whether BYOD is dead for frontline teams, whether MDM is truly a commodity, and how Stratix guides enterprise customers through tiered MDM selection, from OEM-specific tools like Knox Configure up through full enterprise platforms like Omnissa, SOTI, and Intune.

May 7, 202627 min

AI in Healthcare: What's Ready, What's Next, & What's Not

Every healthcare conference in 2026 has the same message: AI is the answer. But is it? Brett Cooper and Lee DeHihns break down what's actually working, what's still hype, and who's looking out for patients when the technology moves faster than the guardrails. In this episode: → Augmenting vs. replacing: Where AI fits in a doctor's toolkit today (and where it doesn't) → Shadow AI: Clinicians are already using unapproved tools, and the HIPAA risks are real → Patient advocacy: How patients are using AI to prep for appointments, decode insurance forms, and get second opinions → The healthcare CIO's dilemma: Where to invest limited budgets when 60% of hospitals run at a loss → Why "buy a screwdriver, look for screws" is the wrong approach to AI adoption Brett and Lee draw from months of healthcare conferences, real doctor visits, and frontline conversations to separate signal from noise.