Ultrasound market looks to ODM model

Allan Evans — EE Times Medical Electronics Special Issue

Much has recently been written  about the medical equipment industry’s transformation from vertically-integrated research and development to more of a systems integration approach.   A confluence of factors has accelerated this trend including market fragmentation and the availability of merchant solutions.  No market within medical illustrates this more dramatically than ultrasound.  Within the last several years the market has seen a fragmentation, not only vertically from high-end to low-end machines, but also horizontally into specialty markets.  More and more, these specialty machines are differentiated by specialized image or signal processing, not the underlying hardware platform.  The ability of the market to fill potential niches has, unfortunately, been held back by the requirement for manufacturers to develop the underlying hardware platform as well.  This presents a tremendous strain on R&D resources. (more…)