Microsoft in Your Medicine Cabinet
The Motley Fool Take

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is aiming to compile, protect and unify our health records in one place. You can't blame it for trying to get into this biz. After all, our health-care records are spread out over everything from various computerized records to illegible scrawls on slips of paper.

Imagine getting hit by a car, tossed into a ditch and picked up by an ambulance in some far-away place. Would you rather the folks taking care of you take a guess as to what your medical history is before plugging you full of drugs and devices, or would you rather that they know because they were able to access your data in a centralized location?

Still, Microsoft's new HealthVault isn't the answer yet. Currently, it's a consumer- oriented, encrypted database that lets users store health information and share it with those they wish. Microsoft hopes the site will become a platform for developers to create Web-enabled applications such as prescription reminders. Early partnerships with medical and sport monitoring device makers, such as blood sugar monitors or heart-rate monitors, allow for the collection and storage of precise data and provide a hint of what could come further down the pike.

It's a start, and Microsoft's deep pockets will help, but government regulators may object. Interested investors should stay tuned.