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Epic Tells Customers It Will Stop Google Cloud Integrations

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Re: Epic Tells Customers It Will Stop Google Cloud Integrations

#51

Post by guitarsteve »

l33tman wrote: post #12
bfung wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^^^ spot on. My thought while reading the article was how poor Google’s sales and customer support culture is across the entire company that has led to non-tech firms picking solutions with Azure and AWS who invest heavily on the support side.

I was operating a fairly large AWS operation, and had the idea to at least check with G Cloud if they were interested (usually you get a boatload of free credits to startups). After 3 emails spread over several months I eventually got a note saying I should expect to talk with my Google Cloud salesguy, but it can only happen over a Hangout. And not any hangout - they sent a cheap ass Android "netbook" that I had to p…

That’s so strange. Does anyone know why they’d want to chat using special hardware?

Re: Epic Tells Customers It Will Stop Google Cloud Integrations

#52

Post by closeparen »

o-__-o wrote: post #41
foobarian wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company I work for does not deal with health-related data so I don't have direct exposure to the issues. But, I think there is something analogous happening with SOX compliance. It is a very expensive and slow bureaucracy that reacts very poorly to change. For example, once I was mortified to find out that due to me randomly logging in to some SOX-covered server, afterward there were multiple meetings between SOX…

If you work for a company that must follow regulations, then you should be aware of your impact. You will learn this as you advance further in your career.. however this post was written as though the regulations are there to cause you grief, but that can't be further from the truth. Think of it like this, the Boeing team is finding out the hard way what happens when you skirt steps in a highly regulated field. SOX i…

If you’ve never encountered a brain-dead compliance process, you’ve had an extraordinarily lucky career.

Even good and thoughtful regulations get interpreted into nonsensical bureaucratic nightmares by some companies’ compliance departments. The implementations that add disproportionate friction usually don’t achieve the intended benefit either. It’s not people choosing a convenience vs. safety tradeoff. It’s just people who don’t understand the subject matter at all.

Re: Epic Tells Customers It Will Stop Google Cloud Integrations

#53

Post by killjoywashere »

This is a head-in-the-sand move by US companies (not just Cerner and Epic, but the hospital system CIOs). If they really think Google is going after healthcare data, they should keep in mind Google is already working with NHS and has a little thing called the Billion Users project focused on India. The British and Indian populations have the same health problems Americans do. Proportions might change, but the content is qualitatively the same.

Also, I wonder if AWS is pushing their heads into the sand. Particularly now that Cerner committed to AWS but DoD gave Jedi to Azure (Defense Health and VA are migrating their medical records to Cerner). AWS may be pressuring a customer (Epic) to squeeze their customers. Which absolutely sounds like something I'd expect from Amazon.

Re: Epic Tells Customers It Will Stop Google Cloud Integrations

#54

Post by aianus »

l33tman wrote: post #12
bfung wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^^^ spot on. My thought while reading the article was how poor Google’s sales and customer support culture is across the entire company that has led to non-tech firms picking solutions with Azure and AWS who invest heavily on the support side.

I was operating a fairly large AWS operation, and had the idea to at least check with G Cloud if they were interested (usually you get a boatload of free credits to startups). After 3 emails spread over several months I eventually got a note saying I should expect to talk with my Google Cloud salesguy, but it can only happen over a Hangout. And not any hangout - they sent a cheap ass Android "netbook" that I had to p…

I was part of the GCP startup program starting Sep 2018 and just had a normal hangouts call with the GCP sales guy. Your experience sounds nuts.

Re: Epic Tells Customers It Will Stop Google Cloud Integrations

#55

Post by EpicEng »

Narkov wrote: post #20

> “We could never pin down Google on what their true business model was,” says a Cerner executive involved in the discussions. Imagine being that insecure in what you do. What were they looking for? A non-compete from Google? Innovate or die.

>Innovate or die.

Close cousin to "financially support your competitors and die."

Re: Epic Tells Customers It Will Stop Google Cloud Integrations

#56

Post by pg_is_a_butt »

twodave wrote: post #36

I really don’t think this has anything to do with competition (if anything Google is competing with Amazon and Microsoft here, not Epic). The article muddies the waters somewhat, but all the quotes are telling a story that says (not untruthfully) they’re dropping it due to its outsized maintenance burden in relation to the proportion of their clients who use it.

I've built apps that used almost every google API available... it is a completely nightmare. Everything changes every few months, and if you don't update your software, it stops working. I swear they do it just to waste everyone's time.

Re: Epic Tells Customers It Will Stop Google Cloud Integrations

#57

Post by ineedasername »

Narkov wrote: post #20

> “We could never pin down Google on what their true business model was,” says a Cerner executive involved in the discussions. Imagine being that insecure in what you do. What were they looking for? A non-compete from Google? Innovate or die.

I don't think it's insecure to want to understand the motivations of those you're in business with. It's not just about competition either. If you don't know why a business partner is bothering to work with you or your industry, you shouldn't be investing significant resources with that partner, they may not plan to stick around.

Heck, dealing with large scale Enterprise tech, a 10-year roadmap (in terms of updates & support) is the standard. I don't expect Google to have such roadmaps for things they're piloting, but then I also wouldn't build anything critical, anything that might be strategic and core to my business, on someone else's "pilot" project.

Managing a massive business is complex, successfully doing so cannot be reduced to something as simple as "innovate or die".

Re: Epic Tells Customers It Will Stop Google Cloud Integrations

#58

Post by modmans2nd »

neandrake wrote: post #50
twodave wrote: post #36

I really don’t think this has anything to do with competition (if anything Google is competing with Amazon and Microsoft here, not Epic). The article muddies the waters somewhat, but all the quotes are telling a story that says (not untruthfully) they’re dropping it due to its outsized maintenance burden in relation to the proportion of their clients who use it.

There might be some fear of competition. Google is offering healthcare solutions some of which seem to be angled at "owning" the healthcare data. I'm only vaguely familiar with Epic's offerings but a lot of these solutions that Google offers seem to encroach in that territory: https://cloud.google.com/solutions/healthcare-life-sciences/ https://cloud.google.com/solutions/modernize-legacy-apps/ https://cloud.google.co…

Epic doesn’t “own” any of the EHR data in their customer’s databases. Not sure when “competition “ you refer to can be considered to come from.

Re: Epic Tells Customers It Will Stop Google Cloud Integrations

#59

Post by killjoywashere »

karpodiem wrote: post #45
manigandham wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are all trillion dollar companies operating in multiple sectors. Why is Google special in this regard?

Right. And while Epic does the heavy lifting of crafting software to support healthcare provider workflows, integrating dissimilar systems (PACS, etc.), and storing all that data, the companies you mentioned feel they can create value by attempting to automate diagnosis and potentially offer some integration point for genetic counseling.

As a physician forced to use Epic, I'm not sure "crafted" is the word I'd use to describe their software. It's more like they addressed the spec from the C suite in a way that was equivalent to punching health care providers in the face. They take Dad's money, and use it to pay thugs to beat up his kids.

Re: Epic Tells Customers It Will Stop Google Cloud Integrations

#60

Post by pg_is_a_butt »

karpodiem wrote: post #37
organsnyder wrote: post #13

Epic being concerned about a giant gaining too much power? That's cute.

Which of the two has a trillion dollar market cap with monopoly like market share in multiple business to consumer product sectors? There’s nothing novel about what Epic or any other B2B enterprise software company does (for the most part), other than total addressable market (and profits) being far smaller than the B2C FAANG giants - the market caps reflect this as well.

What can you do with a trillion dollars that you can't do with a few billion?
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