Microsoft and HBOC Form Alliance to Deliver Health-Care Solutions On Microsoft Enterprise Platform

Microsoft and HBOC Form Alliance to Deliver Health-Care Solutions On Microsoft Enterprise Platform

ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 23, 1998 — Microsoft Corp. and HBOC today announced an alliance to deliver health-care solutions based on the Microsoft®
Windows NT® operating system and BackOffice® family. Microsoft and HBOC, through the Healthcare Developer Alliance, will work to meet the growing need for cost-effective and easy-to-use enterprise solutions for the health-care industry.

The Healthcare Developer Alliance is the result of efforts by the two companies to deliver a wide range of cost-effective solutions based on Windows NT and Microsoft SQL Server
™
. The software solutions deployed on Windows NT and BackOffice will range from departmental solutions to complete enterprise systems. HBOC currently has 13 products based on the BackOffice family.

“Delivering HBOC products on the Windows NT and Microsoft SQL Server platform allows us to more closely meet our customers’ information objectives and supply enterprise solutions on this increasingly popular platform,” said Duncan James, vice president of marketing at HBOC. “Our goal is to be able to offer all of our Pathways products on the Windows NT and Microsoft SQL Server platform and to provide a lower total cost of ownership, while providing the substantially greater reliability and performance demanded by our enterprise customers. The price/performance advantage of Pathways products on Windows NT Server and Microsoft SQL Server makes this an attractive application for our customers.”

HBOC will incorporate interface technologies based on the Component Object Model (COM) in HBOC’s new developments for Windows NT and Microsoft SQL Server, and also in the redesign of existing BackOffice-based products. HBOC will continue to deliver Pathways products on the currently available operating systems and databases.

HBOC is a participant in Microsoft’s new Premier Support for Developers, which allows the two companies to collaborate on solutions to real-world problems. The program gives HBOC access to Microsoft’s new performance lab to troubleshoot custom software before it is implemented at a customer site.

IBM Corp. and HBOC will demonstrate Pathways Health Network Expert (HNE) at Microsoft’s Scalability Day in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 23. Pathways HNE is an enterprisewide master person index (EMPI) solution based on expert system technology designed to provide a unique person identification across the enterprise. The Pathways HNE expert system will process more than 3 million patient records at a rate of more than 1,250 expert master patient index (MPI) matches per minute, running on IBM’s Netfinity 7000 server, a mission-critical
Windows NT-based server.

“The momentum behind Windows NT is driving health-care application vendors to develop some of today’s most innovative solutions for the BackOffice platform,” said John Carpenter, worldwide health-care industry manager at Microsoft. “The platform is designed specifically for large mission-critical enterprise applications offering ease-of-use and a scalable client/server architecture that’s as suitable for a small physician’s office as it is for an integrated delivery system.”

Windows NT and Microsoft SQL Server support COM, a mature technology for developing reusable components. Microsoft is creating interoperability in health-care applications with ActiveX® for Healthcare, a key building block for applications based on COM technology that enables Plug and Play interoperability between health-care applications. ActiveX-based components can be written in any language and deployed across multiple operating systems.

The Healthcare Developer Alliance will result in seminars for HBOC and Microsoft products. As part of the alliance, HBOC has adopted the Microsoft Visual Basic® and Visual C++® development systems as its standard for client-level software development. A Microsoft consultant will work with HBOC to help provide strategic and tactical planning as the company develops and modifies products for Windows NT and Microsoft SQL Server.

Rusty Lewis, HBOC’s chief technology executive, has recently joined the board of the Microsoft Healthcare Users Group (MSHUG), and HBOC will become an active participant in the ActiveX for Healthcare Committee (AHC). AHC members work together to develop standard ActiveX for Healthcare messaging components, provide implementation guidelines and establish an application certification program.

HBOC delivers enterprisewide patient care, clinical, financial and strategic management software solutions, as well as networking technologies, electronic commerce, outsourcing and other services to healthcare organizations throughout the world. For more information, visit HBOC’s Press Room at http://www.hboc.com/press.htm .

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in software for personal computers. The company offers a wide range of products and services for business and personal use, each designed with the mission of making it easier and more enjoyable for people to take advantage of the full power of personal computing every day.

Microsoft, Windows NT, BackOffice, ActiveX, Visual Basic and Visual C++ are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

Other products and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information about Microsoft in the health-care arena, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com
/industry/health/. For corporate information, visit http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages.

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