Healthcare and information technology are beginning to look like professional sports. Without a program, you cannot tell who the players are, which team they are on, or even which sport they are playing. Even their “Super Bowl” games are beginning to look alike.
COMDEX is the annual “Super Bowl” for computer technology — the showcase for all forms of information integration. At the keynote address this year, Bill Gates discussed the planned evolution of Microsoft from a software development company to an Application Service Provider (ASP), something no one was talking about one year ago. ASPs promise users a way to get the latest version of software for a fee-per-use. The other new player at COMDEX was the System Archive Network or SAN. SAN technology allows huge online storage of data at a protected remote site. Both ASP and SAN technologies have become realistic because of broadband data transfer technology, breakthroughs in disk storage technology and plummetting cost.
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