Will Motorola's CLIQ Click with Healthcare?

Motorola recently announced a new smartphone that targets users of social networks. It uses Google's Android operating system and brings newfound powers to mobile devices.

If you haven't been keeping up with mobile phone providers lately, I wouldn't blame you. Motorola, which used to be one of the largest mobile phone providers in the world, has seen its market share sink across the globe. The company painted itself into a corner, but has recently found a way out.

The new phone due later this year from Motorola is called the CLIQ. The hardware itself is not bad. It's a large phone with both a touch screen and full QWERTY keyboard to make typing easier. Other features include fast wireless data, GPS, powerful media capabilities and a 5 megapixel camera. As far as the actual device itself is concerned, it's pretty good. But the hardware isn't the real story here. The software is.

The CLIQ uses a new user interface developed by Motorola called MOTOBLUR. MOTOBLUR takes all the social networks that people might use—Twitter, Facebook, MySpace—and streams all the content live to the CLIQ's desktop. Further, MOTOBLUR integrates social network contact databases with the phone's native contacts application tools. This makes exchanging information with people via practically any medium a snap.

For example, let's say your friends with Johnny Appleseed on Facebook and Twitter, and also through an Exchange E-mail Account. When you look at Johnny's profile, you'll not only see all their contact info, but all the recent communications they've sent to you, be it their Facebook status updates, emails, SMS or IM messages and more. Watch a video here.

How does this relate to health care? Well, of course it depends a bit on how connected your organization is with social media and networking tools. To start, it could be a healthy and interesting way to manage and interact with clients, colleagues and coworkers. We're going to have to wait until the CLIQ is available in the market to see just how far it's social networking prowess will extend. Until then, you can find more information here: www.motorola.com/Consumers/US-EN/Consumer-Product-and-Services/Mobile-Phones/ci.Motorola-CLIQ-US-EN.services