If you ask Microsoft Health Group’s Chief Architect and General Manager Sean Nolan what the shuttering of Google Health means for HealthVault, he’ll tell you the “real and simple” answer to that question is “nothing.” Apart from an expected influx of new HealthVault users — those forced to abandon Google Health — Nolan said one change will be getting “used to being out there more or less on our own.” If you are having trouble detecting Microsoft’s tone, I’ll help you out: Triumphant.
Chilmark Research analyst John Moore isn’t so sure that the imminent absence of its biggest competitor will have zero effect on the day-to-day operations of HealthVault. The end of Google Health could very well bring a PHR quiet period that lasts for the next two years, Moore said.
“In the near term, without any serious competition for HealthVault, Microsoft can sit back a little bit and move some resources over to Amalga to get that tightened up,” Moore told MobiHealthNews in an interview.
Moore describes Amalga as a toolset of healthcare IT services. Now that the pressure is off Microsoft on the HealthVault front, Moore believes the company will (and should) concentrate on making Amalga into a true product.
“It’s not necessarily speculation, it’s just logical,” Moore said. “[HealthVault] has been pulled out of R&D and pulled into the Health Solutions Group Microsoft’s Business Solutions (MBS) group. That means it needs to show more responsibility in terms of [profit and loss],” he said. “They are going to have to start selling stuff.”
While HealthVault may have lost a competitor, as the last comment indicates, the biggest heat for HealthVault or indeed Amalga, may come from within Microsoft itself. Neither product line moves the financial needle one iota in Redmond.
As pressure mounts on the company to re-establish its leadership position in the technology market, it is increasingly likely that outlying business units will come under increasing scrutiny; and if there is a change in the CEO position a top to bottom review of the business units will be a virtual certainty.
Read the full story from MobiHealthNews HERE