Came across the wires today...anything new???
Denver Business Journal, 05/08/98
Two Colorado companies are teaming up to assist the health care industry as it diagnoses its Year 2000 problem.
Colorado MEDtech Inc. and Tava Technologies Inc. signed a licensing agreement customizing Tava's Y2KOne product for the biomedical devices used in health-care facilities. The CD-ROM product, BioMed Y2K One, will be modified specifically to assess Y2K compliance in medical devices including patient monitors, surgical devices, respirators, heart monitors and drug-delivery systems found in hospitals, clinics and extended-care facilities.
"We're speculating the Y2K market in medical devices is in excess of $100 million, and that's a conservative view - it could easily be larger, " said John Atanasoff, president of Colorado MEDtech. "If we could get a small piece of that it could be very exciting."
The Year 2000 problem appears in computer systems programmed to recognize dates with two digits instead of four. These applications will be unable to determine whether a year is 2000 or 1900, possibly causing system failure or incorrect results. An element of the Y2K problem lurks in embedded systems; this encompasses any device that relies on an internal computer chip handling date-sensitive information.
Tava Technologies, headquartered in Englewood, specializes in assessing Year 2000 compliance in the embedded systems of big business, boasting Fortune 500 clients including Coca-Cola Co.
The partnership with the Boulder-based Colorado MEDtech marries the Tava technology with the Boulder-based MEDtech's medical device expertise.
"We're really excited to work with Tava and step into this new market," said Atanasoff. "It's a challenging problem to sort out and we've already had interest from our contacts in these health care facilities."
Colorado MEDtech will rely on the BioMed Y2K One product to launch a new corporate division devoted to Year 2000 compliance in the medical devices industry. Answering the FDA's requirements that all health care institutions account for the status of all medical devices, BioMed Y2K Inc., a subsidiary of Colorado MEDtech, will provide diagnostic services with the CD-ROM product.
"Tava has been a driving force in the Year 2000 industry. The strength of their product and MEDtech's expertise in the medical-device market is a great match," said Jan Curtis, vice president of research at the Denver-based investment firm Spencer Edwards Inc. "No one we know of has tackled this market."
(Copyright 1998)
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Received by NewsEDGE/Web: 05/12/98 14:28:52
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