In Quebec, the supply of dental software, also known as business software, is relatively limited. There are just a few players, including Dentitek, Progident, Dentonovo, Ad2.0 and Exceldent.
Le marché du logiciel dentaire au Québec est unique de par notre langue français et surtout de par sa loi sur la langue française qui oblige les entreprises à utiliser des logiciels en français.
The dental software market in Quebec is unique because of our French language and, above all, our French language law, which obliges companies to use software in French.
These software packages were sold for tens of thousands of dollars for in-clinic installation of the software, its configuration on the server, its database and training for the work teams. These mostly “Microsoft” technologies were standardized for Windows computers.
The world of software has changed dramatically in recent years. With the rise of the cloud and, above all, the rise of local Internet connections and the high Internet speeds offered at low cost on cell phones, cloud software has emerged.
Cloud software is installed on a cloud server – a remote server maintained by a third-party provider such as Google Cloud. This is a whole new way of designing software, requiring a whole new architecture. It can be very difficult to move from on-premise to cloud software without having to rebuild everything.
Programming cloud software requires new skills and a significant investment of time and money. What’s more, the revenue model is completely different, since there is no single local installation, but rather a constant service via the cloud. This is what we call “SaaS” for “Software as a service”. The software of the 80s was a product, but cloud software is now a service.
Dental software companies must then transpose their “on premise” software into a cloud architecture. This requires not only the financial resources, but also the expertise to carry out such a project. You could compare it to making a gas-powered vehicle called “atmospheric” into an electric vehicle. To achieve this, you need to break with your current thinking and adapt to the new reality of the cloud. Unfortunately, some companies don’t have the means to do this, at the risk of being replaced by more modern dental software.
Ontario and the United States offer a host of high-performance, cloud-based dental software. The arrival of this modern software could be an asset for Quebec dentists, ensuring a more balanced service offering than is currently the case. qu’actuellement.
Fortunately, dental software in Quebec seems to be on the way to modernization and a quiet move to the cloud. This will enable Quebec dentists to benefit from more modern software over the next few years. This will make it possible to create connections with other software or even an intelligent telephone system to link patient communications and business software.
