Google Health vs Microsoft HealthVault

In these pages I've been posting about Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault, the two major consumer software companies entries into the personal health care portal market.  So far Microsoft has been more active and more successful at partnering with major health systems, and appears to be investing a lot more in this business.  Leading Bruce Friedman at LabSoftNews to worry that Google Health is running out of steam.  He quotes John Moore:

Please Google, for the sake of all, at least quintuple the size of Google Health’s team so that it is at least a tenth the size of HealthVault’s. Maybe then we will begin to see some sign of a viable competitor, a viable platform and a viable choice for the consumer and Google Health will once again become relevant to the market.

The problem for Google is that they typically offer these products free and monetize them with advertising, and that might not play well in this market.  Microsoft tends to charge for services, which is more along the lines of what consumers might expect.  (Free finanical products which monetize themselves with ads have lagged behind for-fee products for similar reasons; people want to trust the service, and advertising carves away at trust.)

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.  Independent financial service products really never made it - Quicken notwithstanding - most people still turn to their bank for these services.  I'd guess stand-alone health portals won't work either, and the partnerships with major health organizations like Mayo and Cleveland Clinic will probably win out in the end.

Comments

[remedy]

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