Industry round up: Ampronix, IBM, Mercury Computer, Siemens, Toshiba, WebMD
Irvine, Calif.-based Ampronix has entered into a formal distribution agreement with Siemens Energy and Automation through which Ampronix will begin carrying the Siemens Display Technologies line of medical imaging CRT and LCD products. The two companies plan on increasing the presence of Siemens’ displays in North America through a concentrated co-marketing and distribution effort.


IBM today introduced its new Virtualization Manager dashboard, a system that can assist companies in monitoring and managing virtual and physical computing resources from a common portal, including IBM and non-IBM systems and software. Part of IBM's Systems Director family, the new IBM Virtualization Manager reduces the number of management tools needed to support multiple types of servers. The system’s dashboard operates in a web-based user interface and allows businesses to manage technology resources like they would a financial portfolio, moving computing workloads to key areas of the data center that will drive productivity, identify problems in the infrastructure, grow existing workloads, and add or delete computing resources. This is the first technology in the industry to work across multiple major virtualization platforms, IBM said, and includes initial support for VMware, Microsoft Virtual Server, Xen and POWER-based virtualization offerings. Clients also can leverage the capabilities of VMware's VirtualCenter by integrating it into IBM Director to provide a single point of management.


Mercury Computer Systems announced a partnership with Texas-based PACS/RIS company BRIT Systems that will see the integration and distribution of its image management system. The resulting integrated PACS will enable faster radiological workflow and improved image quality for 2D, 3D and 4D data, as well as increased availability of information throughout an enterprise, the companies said. Per the agreement, BRIT Systems will integrate the Mercury Visage PACS and Visage CS Thin Client Server in its Roentgen RIS radiology information system. BRIT then will be enabled to offer customers an extended product portfolio covering clinical applications in cardiology, PET-CT, surgery and orthopedics, and 3D tools.


Liberty Pacific Medical Imaging (LPMI), a developer, owner and operator of diagnostic imaging centers, announced today that its San Francisco Advanced Medical Imaging Center has unveiled the area’s first Toshiba 64-slice CT scanner. The scanner features the latest CT imaging, 3D data processing technology and teleradiology systems offered by Toshiba and will be used to help screen and diagnose cardiac disease among patients. The scanner also will allow patients access to advanced cardiac calcium scoring and cardiac CT angiography exams.


WebMD Health Corp. announced plans to acquire Subimo LLC, a provider of healthcare decision support applications to large employers, health plans and financial institutions. The move by WebMD has been made to build up its private health and benefits portals with the addition of Subimo's online health applications. WebMD also said it hopes to bring more to the growing consumer-directed health plan (CDHP) market with more advanced tools useful in promoting transparency in cost and quality of care. The purchase price for Subimo is $60 million. The acquisition, which is subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to close before the end of 2006. Subimo LLC had revenues of approximately $4.1 million and pre tax income of $790,000 for the six months ended June 30, 2006.
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