Open source is picking up steam in enterprise computing, even as the economy peters out. If West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller has his way, open source will soon make its mark on medicine, too, with the lower cost of open source a key impetus behind the move.
Rockefeller last week introduced Senate Bill 90, the "Health Information Technology Public Utility Act of 2009," which "would create a Public Utility Board under (National Coordinator for Health Information Technology) David Blumenthal to push a model of open-source health software, offer grants to hospitals which adopt the model, ensure interoperability with other systems, and create quality measures for the software," as ZDNet's Dana Blankenhorn reports.
This is just the latest demonstration of open source's growing strength in the health care market, some of which is sponsored by President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan, as Red Hat points out.
With $20 billion in stimulus funds earmarked to induce hospitals to adopt electronic records, one open-source start-up stands to benefit in a big way: Medsphere, the company that has commercialized VistA, the U.S. Department of Affairs' health care management system created with billions of dollars in taxpayer funds.
Medsphere is selling an upgraded version of VistA for comparative pennies on the dollar. Given that a comparable proprietary system routinely runs $20 million to $100 million, according to data assembled by The Wall Street Journal, Medsphere could completely upend the proprietary health care management market.
Proprietary vendors like McKesson and Cerner hold out the same tired arguments that used to be trotted out to combat Linux, MySQL, and other open-source technology: open source is really not cheaper, the software isn't as feature-rich as theirs, etc.
Given how much success such arguments did (not) have against other open-source projects, here's some advice for Cerner and the others determined to cling to their monopoly rents: it won't work. Open source, open standards, and open data is the new starting point for the software conversation.
Medsphere Chairman Kenneth Kizer says Medsphere's OpenVistA "can be installed in one third the time and for about one third the cost of the big-name proprietary systems." Particularly now, that's a story that is going to resonate.
Open source has updated its marketing message. Time for the proprietary health care vendors to do the same.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
With $20 billion in the bank, one would think that Microsoft could afford to build out its own campus. But in a sign of just how "porky" the U.S. federal stimulus bill has become, the city of Redmond, Wash., will be spending $11 million to build a bridge connecting two areas of Microsoft's Redmond campus, as Bloomberg reports.
That's right. One of the richest companies on the planet is using taxpayer money to fund a bridge that arguably benefits no one except its own employees (and visitors). Company spokesman Lou Gellos told Bloomberg that the 480-foot span "is a mobility improvement for the area as a whole" because a congested bridge nearby is not good for walking or bicycling.
Whether the use of stimulus spending toward corporate infrastructure is proper isn't a question of open source versus proprietary. It's a question of wise stewardship of taxpayer funds. Microsoft isn't short of cash. It can build its own bridge.
Yes, Microsoft will contribute roughly half of the total $36.5 million total building cost, but it seems incredible that the company isn't funding all of it, given its resources--and given that the project helps only Microsoft.
Follow me on Twitter at mjasay.
Even as open source thrives in the downturn, with many open-source vendors reporting significantly increased interest in open solutions as budgets get slashed, the U.S. federal government has decided to put U.S. taxpayer dollars into play to fund a study of just how much money can be saved by moving to open source.
Rather than a broad-based study, however, Congress approved a measure that will study the viability and financial effects of open-source health IT providers, as noted in the stimulus bill [PDF - see page 488] and reported on Slashdot:
STUDY AND REPORT ON AVAILABILITY OF OPEN SOURCE HEALTH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS. --
(A) IN GENERAL.--The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall...conduct a study on--
(i) the current availability of open source health information technology systems to Federal safety net providers (including small, rural providers);
(ii) the total cost of ownership of such systems in comparison to the cost of proprietary commercial products available;
(iii) the ability of such systems to respond to the needs of, and be applied to, various populations (including children and disabled individuals); and
(iv) the capacity of such systems to facilitate interoperability.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services is then to report back by October 1, 2010, with a report detailing its findings and conclusions.
Assuming the report is favorable, I suspect that part of that report will offer a hint as to the role open source could play beyond the healthcare industry. As reported by CNET earlier, President Obama has already asked Sun chairman Scott McNealy to draft a white paper that details the benefits of open source. Between this and the Health and Human Services report, it's very possible that the U.S. federal government will have established IT policies that favor open source.
I've long been a critic of government mandates for open source, in part because open-source adoption within the federal government has been strong in the absence of mandates, but a policy that requires consideration of open source as a way to lower costs and vendor lock-in strikes me as appropriate and a good use of taxpayer funds.
Follow me on Twitter at mjasay.
Apparently, even technology companies want a bail-out.
Recently, the CEOs of Google, IBM, and other technology companies converged on the White House to lobby President Obama for key measures like broadband investments to be included in the U.S. government stimulus package. It's one thing to see U.S. auto makers, perpetually inefficient and ineffective in the market, begging for government hand-outs. It's quite another to see the leaders of the world's most successful technology companies seeking the dole, as well.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt made it clear what he hoped to gain from his government intervention in The Wall Street Journal:
Eric Schmidt of Google Inc. said in an interview that he appreciated the emphasis on renewable-energy technology and the deployment of broadband services. "All of that is a real positive for [Google]," he said. "The things that we asked for are in there."
I'm sure they are, and many of them are likely worthy government investments. But with the U.S. in a deep recession after decades of profligate consumer and business spending and subsequent debt, why are successful companies like IBM and Google lining up to help further indebt the government to the tune of nearly a trillion dollars?
We can do better than this. The technology industry has traditionally thrived in the absence of excessive government oversight or involvement. In Silicon Valley, where Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged is considered a libertarian Bible of sorts, it feels wrong to see its industry leaders seeking a stimulus that will do more to help these particular companies than the larger technology industry, an industry that does just fine without government bail-outs.
The way out of the recession is to accept that our past mistakes will of necessity be painful, and let prices drop until they hit the point that debt-struck consumers can afford to spend again. It's not to prop up dying industries, or even healthy industries, with fiscal stimuli that mostly stimulate government, as Daniel Henninger points out in The Wall Street Journal, and government lobbyists, as a recent Foreign Policy article highlights, not businesses.
Business are stimulated by real customers buying real products in the midst of real competition. This is the very type of competition in which technology has thrived. Google doesn't need the U.S. government to buy into its broadband and renewable energy proposals to grow. It needs to continue to strike at Microsoft's jugular. IBM doesn't need to feed at the stimulus trough, either: it needs to continue to expand internationally and invest in making its bloated enterprise products lighter and easier to use.
We, the technology industry, don't need government bail-outs. We need to get lean and compete hard.
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