Tag Archives: cloud computing

data ownership

Data Ownership In The Track & Trace Cloud

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Cloud over IllinoisImportant Notice To Readers of This Essay On November 27, 2013, President Barack Obama signed the Drug Quality and Security Act of 2013 into law. That act has many provisions, but one is to pre-empt all existing and future state serialization and pedigree laws like those that previously existed in California and Florida. Some or all of the information contained in this essay is about some aspect of one or more of those state laws and so that information is now obsolete. It is left here only for historical purposes for those wishing to understand those old laws and the industry’s response to them.Who will own the data that supply chain trading partners store in some future cloud-based, semi-centralized Network Centric ePedigree (NCeP) data repository?  I met one potential future repository service provider who seemed to think that they would own that data.  Imagine their excitement.  All the data about where drugs go throughout the supply chain!  Think of the value they could mine from that.

Well, that’s never going to happen because companies in the supply chain won’t sign up for handing over all of their supply chain data to some third-party just so they can comply with regulations, especially when there exists an alternative approach that would allow them to avoid using a third-party and still comply (by using DPMS).  And regulatory agencies are Continue reading Data Ownership In The Track & Trace Cloud →

IBM, track and trace

Could It Be The Cloud? More Thoughts On IBM’s Divestiture Of Its EPCIS And E-Pedigree Suite

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At times like these I often think of an old movie from 1981 called “Modern Problems” which starred Chevy Chase as a hapless air traffic controller who faced problem after problem, some of which wouldn’t even have existed 20 years earlier.  For some reason I can’t explain, I sometimes think of that movie when I’m about to click the “Publish” button on an essay.  As soon as that button is clicked, my thoughts are instantly transmitted to the world (hundreds of people in the case of RxTrace) in a neat little package.

Almost immediately after clicking the Publish button on last Friday’s essay, “IBM Divests EPCIS and ePedigree Suite” I had thoughts of another possibility that IBM’s recent action might explain.  Too late.  My thoughts were already being read by people.  A “modern problem”.  Fortunately I can send this follow-up.

Like a commenter to my Friday essay, I wondered why IBM would chuck their entire traceability repository product if the problem were simply that ePedigree only makes sense for boutique solution providers?  They could have just sold off the ePedigree application and kept the more generally marketable ITS product.  There has to be more to it than that. Continue reading Could It Be The Cloud? More Thoughts On IBM’s Divestiture Of Its EPCIS And E-Pedigree Suite →