This market will be a primary area for the company’s Surface offerings as it takes its first steps there.
The major tablet device and software manufacturers are beginning to discover that there is a tremendous opportunity in the so-called mhealth – that is, mobile healthcare – industry, and that it is likely that those who are earliest to participate will see the greatest initial returns.
The mobile HER and telehealth market has already been experiencing very rapid growth.
Other players that have already found their way in to the mhealth sector are Kindle Fire, as well as both the iPad and the iPad Mini. Now Microsoft is adding both its Surface and Surface Pro offerings to this ecosystem, as it makes an attempt to capitalize on its ongoing successes within the enterprise field.
A growing number of physicians – particularly in emergency rooms – are using mhealth as a major tool.
This can not only assist ER doctors right on the front line, but it can also assist in monitoring post operative patients while they remain in their homes, and tap into a tremendous amount of medical data no matter where the patient may be, from a consult room to a local café. Microsoft feels that it is the tablet sphere in which mhealth will become the leading technology in both hospitals and smaller practices with an innovative approach to medicine.
So far, both Surface and its much larger Surface Pro have been receiving both good and not-so-good reviews from consumers. However, Microsoft is banking on its newly reworked Windows 8 operating system to provide the user experience that had been missed by the reviewers. This new interface offers interactive, colorful tiles as well as a full suite of cloud products which business customers are already finding highly appealing.
The mhealth platform also offers options such as Lync, which is comparable to Skype for the consumer market, but is built to an enterprise grade. Microsoft is hopeful that this will allow Surface to give physicians the opportunity to take part in considerable telehealth programs that are already beginning to see explosive popularity in areas across the United States.