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.