Microsoft makes leap into growing consumer health care market with it's first purchase

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Microsoft Corporation has taken it's first leap into the growing consumer health care market with its purchase of Medstory, a company that is developing an Internet search engine for health information.

The purchase price was not disclosed by Microsoft.

CEO Steve Ballmer made the big announcement of the purchase during a keynote Conference for the Health Information and Management Systems Society in New Orleans. Also he announced details about the Connected Health Framework Architecture and Design Blueprint, the is apart of a series of guidance documents and tools Microsoft has created for health care providers.

Ballmer has said Microsoft entered the consumer health care market planning to be a bigger player in the overall industry which is part of a bigger strategy to diversify from its core product lines of Windows and Office which make up 90 per cent of its earnings, but are maturing markets with lower growth potential.

To spark more growth for Microsoft it needs to enter markets like consumer health care that will expand and make great profits.

Medstory, the company Microsoft bought started up in Foster City, California it operates a search site that is free for viewers that links them to the information they need from the top select health and medical sources.

"With Microsoft's reach and experience, I look forward to this soon becoming a standard for online searches of health information," Alain Rappaport, chief executive and founder of Medstory, said today in a release.

Experts say that health-care costs are expected to make up about 20 per cent of U.S. gross domestic product by the year 2015. The number of people seeking health care information on the Internet should expand substantially as aging baby boomers develop ailments associated with the senior years.

It could be a blessing to Microsoft that seniors are among the fastest growing segment on the Internet.

Meanwhile, shares of Microsoft rose two cents to $28.92 in early-afternoon trading today on the Nasdaq Stock Market.