{"id":2942,"date":"2010-08-03T16:19:18","date_gmt":"2010-08-03T15:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/2942-microsoft-and-the-nhs-what-went-wrong.html"},"modified":"2010-08-03T16:19:18","modified_gmt":"2010-08-03T15:19:18","slug":"microsoft-and-the-nhs-what-went-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/2942-microsoft-and-the-nhs-what-went-wrong.html","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft and the NHS: what went wrong?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft UK\u2019s John Coulthard, Senior Director Healthcare and Life Sciences, has posted a comment<\/a> on the decision by the NHS not to renew its EWA (Enterprise Wide Agreement) with Microsoft. His summary:<\/p>\n

\n

The bottom line is the NHS benefited from the productivity gains delivered through a suite of Microsoft software worth in excess of \u00a3270m per year. The actual cost to the NHS was \u00a365m per year, delivering a saving of saving of \u00a3205m to the NHS and British taxpayers. For the next three years the cost would have risen to \u00a385m as the NHS deploys more and more technology while the National Programme rolls out.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Software supplier whinging at loss of a lucrative contract? Of course; but at the same time I\u2019d be interested to know whether this results in greater expense for UK taxpayers, of which I am one, and what is the real reason for the contract\u2019s termination.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to think the decision is part of a strategy to end vendor lock-in and promote both competition and use of open source systems; but the truth may be less inspiring.<\/p>\n

What are we to make of this report in Computer Weekly<\/a> which says:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cOut of the blue, the Cabinet Office rejected the cut-down version of the renewal," said a source. "The noise from the top is that they are not sure national agreements work. It will be down to the trusts to make sure they are fully licensed."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

One of the odd things reported is that the cut-down agreement was to have cost \u00a321m, I presume annually; but the government is paying an immediate \u00a350m to Microsoft:<\/p>\n

\n

The Cabinet Office did agree to pay Microsoft about \u00a350m to cover software used in the previous agreement that was not licensed, but attributed the spend to the last administration’s budget.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That does not sound like a strategy to save money, when you consider the licensing costs now facing NHS trusts who no longer have an agreement in place.<\/p>\n

Now, it is possible that the long-term effect will be to reduce lock-in, though that is optimistic; I do not know if any NHS trusts are actually planning to move away from Microsoft\u2019s platform and even if they are, it is not something that can be done quickly. Another scenario is that most of them make their own agreements with Microsoft, the total cost of which exceeds what the EWA renewal would have cost.<\/p>\n

Still, the outcome will probably please Google which has its own idea about how to provide IT for healthcare.<\/p>\n

Nothing I\u2019ve read really explains the decision and I would like to know more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Microsoft UK\u2019s John Coulthard, Senior Director Healthcare and Life Sciences, has posted a comment on the decision by the NHS not to renew its EWA (Enterprise Wide Agreement) with Microsoft. His summary: The bottom line is the NHS benefited from the productivity gains delivered through a suite of Microsoft software worth in excess of \u00a3270m … Continue reading Microsoft and the NHS: what went wrong?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,55,62],"tags":[422,586,636,676],"class_list":["post-2942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-google","category-microsoft","category-open-source","tag-google","tag-microsoft","tag-nhs","tag-open-source"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2942\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}