Next Gen Developer

My RSS feed picked up an article from Medical Connectivity Consulting today. The issues that this particular article raises have been felt throughout the medical industry. I found it rather ironic less than a month ago when a Microsoft employee asked me why the medical industry don't seem to be latching onto Microsoft products. The software is not been written to a high enough integrity level that the users or the developers can be confident in placing it in such a safety critical environment. The MS person in question threw back something about the CE platform being used in cars... but to be honest MS worked very closely with that company to provide the support that was required. We don't see that so much in the medical industry.

With increasing requirements in the medical industry for ubiquitous connectivity between all devices around a bedside with each other and to central systems there are inherent risks. Unfortunately the Microsoft OS seems to be causing additional levels of complexity and cost when implementing such systems. When these very expensive systems have been developed and flaws in the underlying OS are found they are fixed in the PC devices but how often do you think they are fixed in the older embedded devices? These can be headless devices that don't even look like a pc. I mean honestly. The cost of fixing Microsoft faults costs big medical companies millions and one of these days Microsoft will probably find themselves in legal issues regarding this. Especially if they advocate that these embedded systems are inherently safe and reliable. I think it is about time that Microsoft took stock of their embedded offerings and had a long hard look at the reliability and safety aspects of their software. They should also look at the levels of support that they are offering this industry area as well. I think they may find that they are missing out on a world of opportunity, but to get into this market they will need to stop plugging holes and start building a secure, and inherently safe platform from the ground up.

I would advise Microsoft to take the questions of the medical market seriously when they ask to what extent their latest image file bug affects the embedded platforms they should respond asap! I would also suggest for such serious flaws in their OS that they provide a patch that covers all existing OS including Embedded and older systems!

Un-beknown to her until later! Adriana invited me to join this very funky new virtual web desktop called Goowy. I have to say I was a little sceptical at first because it is all flash! Not so good if you are on a low bandwidth pc I though... but it seems to be pretty good and easy to use interface wise on the high bandwidth version. The features on it at the moment are a little limited. They consist of search, blogs, e-mail sync, weather, shares... all those very web things that Google etc are trying to do on their personalised web searches. But the difference here is that this particular one has a very Apple-esque style of interface with the possibility of extending into word, excel, powerpoint style stuff and so much more. I quite like it.

I think this company is one of the up and coming newbies and I wish them well. I can see it having a place with virtual mobile desktops and being used for people on the go and out of the office regularly if the right tools are provided. Overall I would like to see more from this company. I like their direction and I can see the likes of Apple, Microsoft and Google or maybe even HP being interested in it!

Something this company need to be aware of is that people don't appreciate being spammed about it though. Be warned, remember to Un-Tick the inform contact about Goowy. It spams them totally! This is unfortunate because other than this I was pretty impressed. I would suggest to Goowy that they change this and let you tell people yourselves or make it easy to blog about it instead! I mean come on, who wants to spam all their mates? Not I says I!

*UPDATE: Fixed Goowy link URL!*

This is a call for 2 speakers for the London Girl Geek Dinner III. I am looking for 2 people, at least one female if possible, to speak on any technical subject to the girls. They are a friendly bunch and are very welcoming. If you are interested please leave a message here or e-mail me.

The event will be held on the 19th January at the Texas Embassy Cantena from 7:30 pm. Talks start around 8:30(ish).

I look forward to hearing from people soon. To sign up and attend the event please go to the wiki. The usual rules apply... if male bring a female with you!