How many more 'upgrades' do Siemens think that Centaur has? The last two were a) severely handicapped and b) stillborn. On top of that, they are still pushing a 30 year old system (Dimension). How long has it been now? 6 years? 7? And not a single new system from Siemens or even an upgrade that turned into a winner. Vista still hasn't made it and, after all of this time, is unlikely to ever do so.
Sound bad? It's only the tip of the iceberg. Whatever talent Siemens acquired during the shopping spree, is pretty much long gone. Siemens no longer has the critical mass of R&D people to develop a new system or even a significant upgrade to what already exists. Whatever team they might want to put together will have critical shortages in experience. There are virtually zero people in Tarrytown who ever worked on a new system or major upgrade. Critical skills are missing as well. Most, if not all, of the Tarrytown people who ever worked on a major system project have either retired or were caught up in the previous CM house clearing that was Bayer's revenge for Advia IMS (the system that was killed by DS and GW), or are simply dead wood waiting for a package. Much of the in-house proprietary knowledge has been lost (most likely forever).
Regardless of what personnel remain from DPC or Dade Siemens just doesn't seem to have the necessary horses for a major project of any kind. Remember that all future Immulite development was stopped almost immediately after the Bayer purchase (when Immulite became redundant to Centaur in the eyes of Siemens) and much of the DPC engineering talent was lost. There are also no signs of life from ex-Dade other than the ongoing saga of 'Saving Vista'.
Can Siemens DX management be so blind that they do not realize that another Centaur upgrade will be viewed by customers with either boredom and indifference to outright abandonment of Siemens as a legitimate supplier of diagnostics products. With the exception of a few die hards, Siemens diagnostics has zero credibility with customers.
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