It’s been a couple weeks since the news came out that Microsoft was shutting down its operations and sales for Amalga HIS. It always felt awkward for me to see Microsoft purchasing a software that was so specific. It just didn’t make sense to me for Microsoft to go after this type of specific product.
John over at Chilmark Research has a good post with his reasons why Amalga didn’t work well for Microsoft. I’m still pondering his comment that the EMR market is mature. However, his take away is a very good one:
Performing a viability assessment on a potential vendor may not reduce one’s risk. Even a big, viable company such as Microsoft may change its mind on occassion and chose to exit a market.
The only clarification I’d make is that a viability assessment does not equal evaluating if the company is big and viable. I cover this topic in my EMR selection e-Book and in these two posts. Not to mention this post on open source (free) EMR software viability.
I think the viability assessment is useful and essential. Just don’t make the simple assumption that large means viable. Ask Misys users about that one.
I did not know MS had an EHR offering; and its not a surprise that its being sunset. With MS offering Health Vault and requiring the partnership of EHR vendors, it will be in a compromising situation with respect to Channel Strategy. MS was always good at maintaining good Channel Partnerships.
Informative post; and yes, while evaluating the EHR vendors, stability and viability of the organization is important and at the same time bigger is not necessarily safer alternative.