Microsoft Health Solutions Group - Capabilities Analysis

In order to create a better system design, Microsoft needs to understand the layers in the

Health sector and in a sense, define the layers to suit the information flow. As shown in the presentation below, it is important for Microsoft to understand the key stake holders and also factor in the global delivery and support which will be a key to success with lots of information flow across geographies resulting from frequent migration of people between countries. At every layer, Microsoft needs to build capability to define a key control point and focus on defining and driving the layer with that capability.

The Healthsector Information system is most certainly moving towards being a two sided market. Microsoft will need to build its capabilities in two delivery channels. B2B with the customers being major Hospitals, Insurance companies and the Life Sciences organizations. On the other hand, Once these capabilities are built, It can build capabilities to monetize its B2B capabilities by extending it to B2C channels by targeting the actual patients. The key capabilities are going to be in terms of Technology for B2B and in terms of Process definition in terms of B2C channels.

For B2B channels, Microsoft needs to build its data management capabilities and also build its capabilities in terms of data security and Access Management

For the B2C channels, It is important that Microsoft defines specific processes in terms of App development. Support on Windows or a proprietary robust operating system and also the process for app selection, SDK delivery will be critical. In terms of the end users, it will be important to monitor the devices on which the apps are being installed in order to ensure that the backend data security and other capabilities are delivered optimally.

Please visit our site for a comprehensive analysis of the industry and the different firms.

http://healthsector-714.weebly.com/index.html

Microsoft Health Solutions : Capabilities on Prezi

Identity, Security and Privacy in the Gaming Sector

Identity

In the past decade, video game characters have become moldable and specific to the user.  During the early years of simple computer games and the original Mario & Luigi, gamers had the option to select from a variety of pre-developed characters.  Gamers could identify with certain characters or simply pick a favorite, and adopt them as their own for use at every new game.  Choices were finite.

As video game structures have changed from short epics to longer, complex levels, video game makers have given gamers the opportunity to design themselves in their virtual worlds.  With the advent of Wii, gamers were encouraged to model themselves as a cartoon, choosing, for example, hair color and style. As technology advances and graphics improve, gamers will get the opportunity to create avatars that are the spitting images of the real thing.  There is tremendous potential to use such technology to educate individuals and influence behavior. For example, if someone creates a character with the same body proportions, goes on a binge eating rampage in the game and sees the results, an obese man who has difficulty completing tasks within the game, the individual might rethink how he conducts his real life. Seeing yourself and the effects of your choices on screen can send a powerful message.

Also, with interactive gaming gaining popularity, gamers will are able to modify their identities to project a persona that they wish to have rather than what the reality of the physical world dictates.  Their virtual lives can serve as an escape from reality, where they can experiment, test, and revert to their ideal state with the click of a button.

Security

Security in gaming came to the forefront and turned into a mainstream issue with news of a security breach of Sony’s PlayStation Network by a group of hackers that shut down the service for nearly a month and ultimately cost Sony millions of dollars in revenue and damage to the PlayStation brand. This security breach is now the largest breach in history with over 77 million accounts compromised, which surpassed the TJX security incident back in 2007 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Network_outage). Incidents similar to Sony’s will continue to occur in the sector for the foreseeable future, although at a much smaller scale, now that gaming has entered the digital era and online accessed content and platforms become ubiquitous. The spotlight is now brighter than ever on security in the gaming sector as Sony is still recovering from this incident, but security has always been an issue for all companies that are associated with gaming.

Security is a blanket statement in gaming because there are so many different contexts where security is applicable. Some examples include manipulating code in games, accessing online game servers, cheating to obtain an advantage, assuming another gamer’s identity, and so on. These are just a few examples, but the reality is that compromises in security can have a profound adverse effect in this sector compared to the other sectors where security may not be as vital. Game developers and publishers can lose millions with pirated software while gamers can become frustrated and lose interest when other gamers cheat to gain a competitive advantage in online video games. For the most part, security has been adequate in the gaming sector up to this point but the PlayStation incident brought the sector to its knees. While that incident was devastating to Sony and the PlayStation brand, it will serve as a reminder to the rest of the industry that security is going to play a major issue in the future and that companies must do everything they can to mitigate that risk. The digital era will usher in additional challenges and unforeseen risks that all companies must grasp or face a similar outcome that Sony experienced earlier this year.

Privacy
Privacy in video games is a challenge for game developers, console manufacturers, and consumers. Consumers could have their gaming experience in complete isolation and experience privacy, but the value added from having a connected gaming experience drives most gamers to open communication channels. The challenge then for the game developers and console manufacturers is to ensure privacy controls within the connected gaming experience.
For example, Microsoft Xbox Live shows a when a user is logged in, their achievements, the game they are playing or the movie they are watching at that time. Users are prompted upon first setting up their Xbox Live account to enable or disable this feature, and the choice can be changed at any time. The result is a value added connected gaming experience while enabling consumers to have a finer degree of control over their information.
The changes in the cloud computing era will also impact privacy in video games. Microsoft recently enabled cloud storage for game saves (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g77UF5tGfm8). This requires consumers to sacrifice a bit of their privacy for added value in a balance that Microsoft must consistently deliver.

Updated Gaming Bipartite Network

Updated Network Insights

As we look at the network model for the gaming industry over the next few years, a few trends emerge. Even over the past five years, more firms who were traditionally platform providers or content creators have moved into distribution, leveraged by content digitization and with the strategic goal of cutting the middle man. We have seen companies such as Microsoft, Apple, and Nintendo develop direct consumer relationships -- areas once controlled by GameStop, Target, and other brick and mortar retail stores. We have seen this play out in the music industry and more recently with ebooks.

Also as a result of the digitization of video games, it is becoming easier for new content creators ("indie studios") to reach an audience. The gaming platforms that are being developed also require a less formal knowledge structure to begin development. For example, the mobile gaming SDKs have a lower learning curve than the more robust XBOX or PlayStation SDKs. These dynamics have led to a proliferation of smaller independent video game development firms, who can create and deliver a video game with as little as one person -- a feat that was impossible as recently as five years ago.

All this trends are visible in our network of relation of the industry. When analyzing the network big picture it is interesting to observe that the bigger players in the Industry - Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo - are positioned in a central node that allow them to oversee the industry and influence in the different layers. Also is remarkable how heterogeneous the game development layer is. With game studios, movie makers and brands interacting for the content development creation.

In our view in the near future this network will continue its expansion towards the online and social gaming layers, those companies able to effectively incorporate this new trends in their value chain will prevail in the market. At the same time content creation will become even more competed since technology has increase the availability of tools for creative small player and also has lowered development cost.

The difference between Microsoft and Apple is "SECRECY"

The author addresses an interesting idea about whether it is better to introduce your product's features to the consumers early before its launch "Microsoft's way" or to keep everything secret till the last minute "Apple's way".
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2011/apr/22/no-headline---22b0xwilliams-col/

Seamless Connectivity

I'm not your average consumer of technology, I'm neither Mac, PC, Linux, or Tablet. I'm all of them. I love my HP PC, my MacBook Pro, and my Ubuntu Server. I love my Windows Phone, and my iPod Touch. I love my Xbox 360, and my Wii. I love my friends' iPads, and I cannot wait for my own Kindle Fire to arrive.

My only wish is to connect all my technology seamlessly.

My Xbox, Windows PC, and Windows Phone, all interconnect.
My iPod and MacBook Pro are seamlessly intergrated.

The only current interconnectivity is through Amazon: My Kindle, Kindle Fire, and Kindle Apps (on iPod, Windows Phone, and all laptops) are all interconnected. I can read my books anywhere.

I will offer a conjecture that the tech company that can seamlessly integrate across all screensizes, formats, and user experiences will thrive in the volatile technology market. Using Amazon's WhisperSync to connect all my reading material can only be the first step, I would like interconnect every instance of my Angry Birds, Microsoft Word, and my financial analysis apps. (finviz, BofA, Charles Schwab, etc.)

Microsoft Health Solutions Group

Bio-Informatics Industry

Bio-Informatics industry has a very broad definition. While it can be associated with the IT infrastructure and applications for the entire healthcare value chain from drug discovery to delivery and efficacy analysis and management, Bio-Informatics has also been increasingly associated with projects like the Genomics. At its broadest, bioinformatics is the application of information technologies and sciences to the organization, management, mining and use of life-sciences information. (Rasmussen, March 2005).Bio-Informatics can be seen as an enabler to all levels of the healthcare value chain starting from Lifesciences, pharmaceuticals to providers.

Microsoft Health Solutions

Microsoft Health Solutions looks provides digital solutions across three major healthcare areas

• Physician Relationship Management : Track and manage complex relationships with affiliated and nonaffiliated physicians in your community.

• Chronic Condition Management : Microsoft technologies help you streamline patient outreach programs, providing more focused care while more effectively managing costs and resources.

• Microsoft Amalga : Advancing understanding of your organization's performance drivers.

Microsoft Amalga

Amalga HIS is a state-of-the-art, fully integrated hospital information system which provides rich integration among a hospital’s front- and back-office modules, giving clinicians and administrators access to information within and across departments.

The major goal of Amalga is to connect information from different sources within a Hospital. It helps view data as patient centric than source centric (like financial data, clinical data, etc). With a patient centric data management, the patient can interface with Amalga through Microsoft Health Vault. It provides a more holistic view the patient data and also provides for tracking the patients history.

Microsoft Amalga : Firms in the network

Since Amalga delves into the different facets of healthcare delivery management through an IT offering, Microsoft HSG has had to built relationships with a wide variety of companies. This includes Hospitals (for early adoption), IT Vendors( For developing different modules of the Application Suite) and also Bio-pharma (who use Amalga for clinical trial management and drug efficacy monitoring).

Microsoft in Gaming: A Giant Ready to Grow Further

Executive Summary
Microsoft is a powerful industry incumbent with the power and corporate strategy to respond to emerging technologies and potential threats. Microsoft also fosters and maintains key business relationships across all layers of the gaming industry stack. This further enables them to respond to threats.
Position and Potential Threats 
Microsoft's strengths include a strong developer community, which is enabled by the cross-platform development capabilities of XNA. The XNA framework recently allowed Microsoft to compete in the mobile gaming space with Windows Phone games. Another strength is enhanced social capabilities through Hotmail, Xbox Live, Windows Live, Facebook, Bing, Twitter and Windows Phone. Connecting gaming devices to the social layer grows the convenience and usability of the gaming device. Microsoft could be disrupted by new emerging technologies specifically ones that enable new user gaming experiences. One example of this kind of disruption would be the Nintendo Wii and Microsoft’s response with the Xbox Kinect. If Microsoft had not responded with Kinect, Nintendo could have taken greater share, greater developer mind share, and greater revenue and value away from Microsoft in the gaming industry. In the next 5 years new corporations that integrate more quickly into new devices or new gaming experiences and steal developer mind share, and gamer market share can threaten Microsoft. Microsoft can respond to potential threats by aggressively sourcing and acquiring companies with potentially disruptive technologies.
Layer Analysis
Microsoft has key relationships in all layers of the gaming industry. Many of the relationships are in addition to the participation of Microsoft itself in a layer.
Hardware
Microsoft is active in the hardware layer with the Xbox 360. Microsoft uses a loss leader strategy for the Xbox, looking to recapture value in the other layers. Xbox 360 uses key relationships with IBM and NVidia for chip design and Flextronics, Wistron, and Celestica for manufacturing. Microsoft has another strategic partnership in the hardware layer with Nokia. Microsoft’s investment into Nokia enables higher volumes of Windows Phones. Mobile gaming is a growing trend and influencing the hardware layer further enables Microsoft to capture value in other layers.
Content Creation & Publishing
Microsoft participates directly in the content creation layer, but to a much lesser extent than at the publishing layer. Many of the Microsoft developed games are well known classics because they have seen a wide distribution (e.g. FreeCell, Flight Simulator). Microsoft also develops games when it adds value to another layer, for example, Microsoft acquired Bungie Software to launch the Xbox with Halo. Halo was the ‘killer-app’ that helped cross sell the original Xbox. Microsoft also has many key relationships in the content creation layer. Exhibit 1 shows Microsoft’s sphere of influence. Most of the relationships represented there are game developers who rely on Microsoft for publishing the games they’ve developed. Currently content development and publishing is the most profitable layer, with Microsoft and game developers holding onto the biggest share of the end user’s dollar.
Distribution
The distribution layer has seen significant disruption in the past 5 years. Game purchases are trending away from physical discs and brick-and-mortar retailers and trending toward digital distribution and virtual storefronts. Microsoft stands to benefit from this disruption. The Xbox Live Marketplace now delivers full downloadable titles, add-ons, downloadable content, as well as movies and music to gamers’ Xbox 360s. Microsoft operates the Xbox Live Marketplace with Microsoft points, an artificial currency valued at 80 points to the dollar. Microsoft also has key relationships in the traditional distribution layer. Many Microsoft Published games are still purchased at the brick-and-mortar retailers like GameStop.
OS/Platform
Microsoft has 4 concurrent strategies in the OS/Platform Layer: 1. Windows as platform 2. Xbox as a platform 3. Windows Phone as a platform 4. XNA as a developer platform Windows, Xbox and Windows Phone address different ‘screens’ the PC, the TV and Mobile phone screens. In the current industry structure the operating system/platform layer is the layer with the most influence on other layers, as the controller of this layer dictates capabilities to other layers. The XNA development framework is Microsoft’s strategic play to capture and keep developers in the Microsoft ecosystem. XNA minimizes code rework to address the 3 screens.
Social
Microsoft’s involvement in the social layer has a two-pronged approach. First, Microsoft maintains it’s own social connections with Friends on Xbox Live, Windows Messenger and Skype. Secondly, Microsoft established key relationships with other social networks, like Facebook and Twitter and connects these social networks to Xbox Live and Windows Phone. Conclusion Microsoft participates in all the layers of the gaming industry to some extent. A combination of direct participation and key relationships with other companies illustrates Microsoft’s strategic choices with regards to each later. The choices made in one layer directly impacts the other layers and the amount of value Microsoft can capture from the gaming industry.

Exhibit 1: Microsoft’s Sphere of Influence

The Tech Family

After the class discussions on Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Facebook, it was great to see an infographic on how interconnected these tech companies are.

Impact of Apple and Microsoft on payment processing sector

Payments are an essential part in all transactions where value is exchanged. Typically, the payments are done through either cash, or check or credit/debit cards. Technology is changing how the payments are processed through each of these modes. In this post, we are focussing on the credit card payment and processing sector. Both Apple and Microsoft are already taking steps that are influencing the strategies of existing players in this sector.

When you pay through credit card, 5 or more parties are involved behind the scene to make the payment work and they share the value. These parties include the merchant, payment gateway, merchant's bank, credit card network, issuer bank and the customer. Mode of interaction between each of these parties is affected by software and technology.

A major strategy shift is happening in customers' interaction with merchant for payment through credit cards. Contactless payments has been been attempted by all major credit card networks. Visa piloted Paywave which is similar to MasterCard's PayPass and Amex's ExpressPay. But the dominance of smartphones and especially iPhone has compelled these networks to change their strategies for contactless payment adoption. Visa recently launched payWave for iPhone which is essentially a protective phone case with secure memory card that enables you to just wave your iphone at the terminal to make payment. Mastercard partnered with Google to launch Google Wallet, a digital wallet that eliminates the need for a physical wireless credit card. Like Google, Apple and Microsoft could make NFC technology part of their dominant phones/platforms and thus extract additional value away from credit card industry.

In fact the shift that is taking place towards digital wallets has the potential to give rise to a new platform for payment and can create alternate stacks in this sector. For example, Google's digital wallet has Sprint, a telecom company as another partner. Telecom companies have been working on their own innovations in mobile payment. Apple and Microsoft, through their existing strong partnerships with telecom companies can enable and speed up the creation of new layers in the payment sector at the expense of incumbent layers.

We can imagine a scenario where Apple could essentially shut out credit cards from all purchasing activities. Users could pay through their iTunes account and pay their iTunes account directly through their checking account. Going further, some day it might enable merchants to use an app on their iPhones/iPads to take payment from a customer who is also using an iPhone. The whole need of having a hardware for merchant (the payment machine) and software to integrate it, could be eliminated.

Similar strategy shifts and innovation can also occur in interaction between other players in the credit card payment processing. Microsoft can bundle payment gateway and payment processing in its business software offering,thus eliminating another existing layer in the industry. In its ERP offering called Dynamics NAV, Microsoft has partnered with a company called ChargeLogic, which offers a platform for handling payment processing directly inside of Dynamics NAV without needing any external hardware or software. This allows companies using Dynamics NAV to authorize a payment right when an order is placed, all in one integrated system.

Staying on the topic of value creation by Apple and Microsoft in the payment processing sector, we venture to think that the whole payment processing sector itself could be eliminated one day if Microsoft and Apple's current strategies succeed. Credit card networks are essentially a platform that enable transaction between customers and merchants. Credit card networks created this platform by reaching to customers and merchants to adopt this platform. Apple's dominant platform already has a terrific consumer reach and its move to consumer cloud will extend it further. Microsoft's cloud strategy for its business application software may enable it achieve similar reach on the business/merchant. Some day, perhaps Microsoft and Apple could partner to create a cloud based consumer and merchant platform that can eliminate the need for all credit card network itself.

Thus strategies and value creation in payment processing sector could be fundamentally disrupted by Microsoft and Apple.


( Post contributed by Akshaya, Burke, Joe, Manoj, Monica and Sid - The Financial Services Team )

Lessons from Apple & Microsoft

What I took away from Apple and Microsoft was the enormous potential of cooperation amidst a highly competitive environment. In a competitive relationship that includes derogatory commercials, a rabid fan-base, and the occasional lawsuit Microsoft and Apple managed to come together and form a partnership that was beneficial not only to each of the companies but also to consumers.
Microsoft made an investment that allowed Apple to fund its R&D which led to its enormous growth and brought Microsoft Office on Apple products up to par with its Windows counterpart. Apple opened its platform to Internet Explorer and gave up what would come to be ridiculously valuable non-voting stock.
This partnership made both companies stronger and it can serve as an example for the financial industry. The major banks like Bank of America and Chase have seen their ability to charge fees seriously reduced through government regulation. They have resorted to charging new fees to recoup some of that lost revenue which has been met... less than enthusiastically. But the banks, namely Bank of America, Chase and Wells Fargo have partnered to open up a new market, well new for them anyway. clearXchange is the big banks answer to Paypal. It will allow person to person payments in an attempt to capture the enormous market that Paypal has until now basically owned.
The banks face some challenges, namely getting people to switch to clearXchange from Paypal. It will be interesting to see where this partnership goes in the future, will the banks be able to put aside their competitive spirit long enough to create a viable payment network that could rival Paypal?

Microsoft Considering Buying Yahoo!!

http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-considering-buying-yahoo-2011-10


According to Reuters reports; Microsoft is considering buying Yahoo. But the question is whether that acquisition is a meaningfull one from a network perspective.

At one end Microsoft realizes that "MSN is a critical component of helping Bing win." While on the other hand, its portal space is being currently challenged. Facebook is just absorbing more and more minutes of usage. The time shifting toward mobile is another factor weighing on portals like MSN.

So Should Microsoft buy Yahoo?

Gates and Jobs Interview

While the interview was really informative and interesting, I found a website with several images and jokes regarding said interview. I figured it would be a good resource to share!

Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates