Microsoft's health vision is highly proprietary

As more details emerge about Microsoft's health strategy, such as its Common User Interface, one thing that becomes clear is that its vision is highly proprietary.

While the result is highly attractive, dependence on technologies such as Microsoft Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation guarantees the benefits will flow mainly to Microsoft customers.

The Microsoft Common User Interface, in other words, is not common at all.

This may work well for Microsoft, and for Microsoft customers, but it won't result in standards which elevate the whole market.

Let's offer an example, from Microsoft's own design guide.

The Design Guidance provides recommendations on how clinical concepts should be entered and displayed. It includes guidance for clinical noting (for example, the display of clinical terms within forms). Recommendations for matching SNOMED CT® clinical terms is also covered.

Snomed, in case you don't know, is an international association which aims to create standard clinical terms worldwide. So why is Microsoft just translating this -- why isn't it inside the Snomed tent, committing to full cooperation?

What health IT needs more than anything else is a set of free, interoperable standards. Microsoft connects to such standards, but only second-hand. Its customers will remain in Microsoft-world, dependent on Microsoft for connections to the outside.

Microsoft is a serious company, doing serious work to bridge these kinds of gaps. But they need to be bridged if Microsoft is to be taken seriously as more than a niche player. Or to put it another way, stop with the Brooks Brothers. Give us Wal-Mart.

You either work on truly universal standards or you play for proprietary advantage. You can't do both.