My New Year's Resolution: Betting on Azure over AWS in Healthcare

et’s start with new year resolutions. Mine is to learn one of the leading cloud platforms. Sure, I know there is no “right” answer. The top cloud providers Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure are popular and continue to demonstrate a strong growth. I bear in mind that cloud technology’s future might not be singular but rather a multi-cloud environment.

This desire to learn the most relevant cloud technology for healthcare led me to where every curious individual with an internet connection starts with, Google. Then, I went through various rabbit holes on social media. My research leads me to believe that Microsoft Azure is better positioned to be the dominant healthcare cloud and win the healthcare cloud wars. Of course, I have my reasons.

Microsoft the arms dealer

Epic Systems, the largest EMR vendor in the US, struck a deal with Azure to integrate Azure AI and Microsoft Teams with its EMR offering. Nuance, healthcare speech recognition software made a strategic partnership with Azure to use Azure AI to improve Nuance’s offering. Some large hospital systems like Providence's St. Joseph Health and Johns Hopkins also chose Azure as their cloud vendor.

New companies will be gobbled by the legacy companies that will be already using Azure.

On the macro level, we all know that Microsoft has a firm grasp on the enterprise. No CIO was ever fired for choosing a Microsoft product. It is a more straightforward pitch to the client – “you already use office, SQL Server, and Windows, why not add Teams and Azure as well”. Another interesting point I heard on the This Week in Health IT podcast by Bill Russell, is that you can think of Microsoft as an arms dealer, not as a rival or competitor. Using this line of thought, when you need a weapon, there is no problem because Microsoft has many solutions for you to choose from, and the good part is, you do not have to bother – they will not touch your cabbage ($$$). Furthermore, Microsoft is doubling down on the healthcare industry with a first industry-specific healthcare cloud offering to utilize better Azure capabilities for telehealth, care management, patient engagement, and remote monitoring.

Hello, Mr. Bezos

No one in their right mind will count out Mr. Bezos, especially when he sets his heart (and company resources) going after the largest segment of the economy that is ripe for disruption (healthcare is 17.7% of US GDP, that’s $3.8trillion in spending).

Amazon AWS gained a lot of traction in Healthcare through a partnership with “Cerner” the second-largest EMR company. Besides, Amazon is making moves in the healthcare space with the expansion of Amazon Care telehealth services, the announcement of Amazon Pharmacy as a service to distribute prescription drugs, and Amazon Halo fitness tracker.

healthcare and insurance companies’ CEOs are now dreading the board meeting where they will need to present the “How are we going to stop Amazon” plan.

However, Amazon’s biggest strength as a customer-centric company that comes up with great solutions for its customers can be a weakness in the healthcare cloud wars. Fortune 500 CEOs in different economic sectors such as commerce, media, cloud, and logistics are already going to sleep with one eye open, knowing that the Amazon juggernaut is coming for their business. Adding to the list of sleep-deprived CEOs, I am sure healthcare and insurance companies’ CEOs are now dreading the board meeting where they will need to present the “How are we going to stop Amazon” plan.

Going back to the arms dealer analogy, it is clear Amazon will not only sell you their ‘weapon’ (AWS) but will also use this weapon to take chunks of your hide. If I were a healthcare CIO, I would not be sure I would happily choose to sleep with the enemy, which is moving my business to the AWS cloud.

Startups are the future?

You might say:

“Wait, if you are looking to the future – new companies will use AWS". It is true. Many startups, including healthcare startups, choose to go with AWS as the cloud vendor because more developers have experience with AWS. It is also said that the AWS community is more robust than the Azure community.

I hear you, and my answer is that we see so much consolidation in the healthcare space, I am afraid new companies will be gobbled by the legacy companies that will be already using Azure.

Conclusion

To sum things up – Azure will win the healthcare cloud wars for these three main reasons:

• Microsoft is not competing directly with healthcare companies.
• Microsoft is already deeply embedded in the enterprise.
• Consolidation will still lead small companies to Azure.

Guess I should start learning Azure. Do you agree?

Excerpts from this blog will be posted on my social media to learn more from the crowds’ wisdom. I would like to hear from you; let’s connect on LinkedIn or Twitter.