Both Bill Gates and one of his CTOs, Ray Ozzie, have written memos to
Microsoft staff about a sea change in the software industry that could
swamp the company. There's been lots of main stream press about the
memos here, here and here. You can read the actual memos here.

This will eventually have a big impact in health care because a number
of market trends make the benefits of the technology that Gates
describes very attractive. With the drive to adopt EMRs, EHRs and
RHIOs, we are rapidly reaching the point where “single vendor
solutions” are no longer practical. Even if someone like GE bought a
bunch more companies, they'd need this type of technology just to
integrate the acquired products. Vendors looking to bring products to
market in the next couple of years should look hard at this because it
is already being bolted on to legacy HIT platforms and built into new
products in health care.

Resistance is futile.

[Hat tip: Slashdot]