Just a thought, but could the medical software work with WINE well enough for general usage?

To be honest Windows 7 works fine but 8GB RAM is overkill. At best you only need 2-4GB. However before you do any migration, do test the Wine/CrossoverOffice test to see if it works, but if you have to go Windows, Windows 7 will work well enough without too many penalties.

I believe a case like this is best put on a proper system or properly virtualized using kvm zen vmware etc. Wine is an utter waste of time and adds complexity where required support will be very difficult to come by.

Wine is a great project but is not mature enough to provide a solid backbone and quality assurancfore this type of project.

Wine at best is for use at home, not in a commercial mission critical system. Wine will also cause unacceptable performance penalties in this case.

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Thank you all for your comments. Some of you have experience in this area and I appreciate your sharing.

The acquaintances, not being geeks or even computer savvy, never heard of free/libre software. Not surprising to me as I have seen that response often.

I explained to them the basic decision of staying with the devil they know versus moving to the devil they don't know. I agreed with them that for the short term they should stick with the devil they know. Costly, yes, but without almost no disruptions to their daily work flow.

Contrary to my original post, I learned in our conversation today they don't do any of the bookkeeping. They collect and organize the information but a third party accountant actually crunches the numbers and issues the checks. They mentioned that they would like to reduce those costs and start maintaining the books.

Initially I thought that would be doable. When they mentioned wanting to do payroll and online banking I told them their best option probably was Quickbooks or similar proprietary software. To my knowledge Gnucash and other free/libre apps don't support payroll modules. They don't well support the evil of taxes. Online banking depends upon certain file protocols that all proprietary software support but are limited in the free/libre software realm.

I think with respect to vertical market needs, free/libre software still leaves much to desire. That is a simple reality check. There is much to like about free/libre software with respect to mainstream needs, but vertical markets are tough problems to resolve.

After I explained some free/libre options as well as associated caveats, they seemed a tad interested in the concept of free/libre software with respect to long-term solutions. Perhaps a seed has been planted.

For now they need to stabilize their operations with all the software updates they need to perform, both with Windows 7 and the proprietary medical records software. Perhaps when the dust settles several months down the road, they will be open to the idea of a $50 demo computer with OpenEMR installed running on a free/libre OS in which they can play and experiment. But that will have to wait for another day.

Thank you all for sharing.

I think your solution is good. Now enjoy the contract! Short term a drastic switch like that is always difficult, much easier for companies that implement such systems from the get go, but as you said, they know about alternatives now. In the future they may very well take you up on the offer if you can impress them now.

I'll second that -- the easiest (for now at least) is dump XP and migrate to Win7 preferably with the same vendor's software. Adding Quickbooks (which is excellent software customized for multiple business types) for the bookkeeping and payroll (QB payroll is the best I've used as it includes all the local, state and federal forms and electronic filing). QB banking is also a breeze to use -- and tax accountants love it. And, lordy, Quicken has QuickPractice, Medical Practice Software (http://quickpractice.com/) that may be of interest.

I had to hold my nose to write that. Like it or not, it's a WinWorld when it comes to widely used proprietary, well-maintained, software such as Quicken products (one of the few reason that I keep VirtualBox and Win7 is Turbotax which fully integrates with every other Quicken product).

I'd love to see a Linux-based system like QuickPractice but I think you'd be talking about a pretty hefty job to specify it, write it and then maintain it. On-the-shelf just may be the best alternative.

Hope this helps some.

While I agree that there are some areas where Free or Open Software has yet to make an impact, and possibly in some cases, may never, but IMHO it is wrong to categorically imply that Free software has no place in vertical business. Software like Quicken/Quickbooks has had decades to develop a proprietary platform that still provides sufficient flexibility to serve most needs. Most aren't that old or well funded.

Not all vertical businesses profiles are decades old. New models form all the time. Here the access to flexibility and specific customization gives Open Source an edge. It would be interesting to know how much of Tesla and SpaceX is Linux. It may take a decade or more to achieve that level of acceptance in larger enterprises, but Apache and MySQL, for example, has proven that if the software is solid, it can be accepted, and even eventually, dominate.

I wrote "I think with respect to vertical market needs, free/libre software still leaves much to desire."
I wrote nothing about having no place. Hopefully you were referring to a different post.

Vertical market software is defined as software targeted at the needs of a specific business. Whereas horizontal market software is generally applicable like spreadsheets.

In this context Quickbooks/Quicken is all but vertical market software but a very clear example of horizontal market software.

FOSS has been all but failing in the vertical market. I think it is not exaggerated to state that nowadays developed world is completely tied to the Internet. First and for all web services, cloud services, but also Google, libraries and scientific publications. While the users are all over the market (and hence horizontal) the cloud/internet business itself (the service providers) is strictly a vertical market. I would say that Linux has more than a firm position in that market.

I'd rather say that it is the horizontal market FOSS is failing in. Desktop, Office applications, tax/financial applications and any dumbass application are not available in FOSS.

And yes, most specific markets tied to large enterprises, medical (like in this thread), financial, industrial (AutoDesk) or media (Adobe) do not use FOSS. For a reason which is mostly vendor lock-in in one or another aspect. This thread elaborates sufficiently on that subject.

Having said this, is FOSS failing in the horizontal market? Not if you look at Thunderbird and Mozilla. But those are independent applications, built onto an open protocol (HTTP, SMTP)

jlinkels

You might want to take a look at a web based software like www.practicefusion.com . My wife works in a medical office and its what they use there. You only need a web browser to use it.

SaaS.