14 DAY TRIAL // With Google Health heading to an early grave, Microsoft HealthVault is a viable alternative for both end users looking for a new home, as well as for developers looking for a new Cloud health service.
Devs can take advantage of the HealthVault Device Driver Development Package available free of charge from the Microsoft Download Center in order to create drivers for health and fitness devices, to have them connect seamlessly with HealthVault.
As is the case of development resources provided by the software giant, the HealthVault Device Driver Development Package contains a number of sample drivers as well as the necessary documentation to get developers working on their own projects for HealthVault.
“This kit contains various components intended to help development of a device driver for Microsoft Health Solutions. It is intended for use by HealthVault Partner software developers. The following is a general description of the contents:
•Code: Contains code for enabling HealthVault Partner devices to interact with the HealthVault ecosystem, such as the HealthVault Partner WPD driver.
• Docs: Contains general documentation for building WPD drivers for HealthVault Connection Center.
•Tools: Contains useful driver development tools, such as WpdInfo, which can be used to interact with and test WPD drivers,” the Redmond company said.
Google Health will be discontinued come January 1, 2012, although users will still have access to their date for another year.
Microsoft has already introduced a tool designed to simplify migration of user health data from Google Health to HealthVault. The solution automates migration completely if customers so require, and is also available free of charge.
With the death of Google Health, Microsoft HealthVault has undoubtedly become increasingly attractive to users, developers, partners, etc.
By leveraging HealthVault Device Driver Development Package, devs can make sure that their health and fitness devices play nice with HealthVault. According to Microsoft, the device driver development kit needs developers to also be running either Visual Studio 2005 SP1 or Visual Studio 2008 as well as the Windows Driver Development Kit, tools necessary for the sample drivers to compile.