REDMOND, Wash., and BOCA RATON, Fla., Dec. 18, 2003 — Eclipsys Corporation ® , The Outcomes Company® , and Microsoft Corp. today announced a multiyear strategic alliance to advance Eclipsys’ SunriseXA™ enterprise solutions based on the Microsoft® platform and .NET technologies. The goal of the strategic alliance is to provide innovative healthcare enterprise solutions that integrate with a wide array of legacy applications, are easier to implement and maintain, and are more adaptable to current and future customer needs at a lower total cost of ownership.
As a cornerstone of this alliance, the two companies will collaborate on marketing, sales and software development efforts. Microsoft and Eclipsys share a common technology vision that centers around the development of software based on industry standards such as Extensible Markup Language (XML) and Web services. These standards enable healthcare enterprises to deploy the most open and flexible solutions possible for their mission-critical businesses.
Specifically, in addition to creating and executing go-to-market sales and marketing campaigns, the alliance will deliver enhanced value to Eclipsys’ customers by embedding Microsoft’s .NET Framework, smart client technology and Web services into SunriseXA, thus providing users with richer, connected and more productive experiences across desktop and mobile devices.
“With this strategic alliance, Eclipsys is well-positioned to meet the needs of healthcare customers now and in the future,”
said Paul L. Ruflin, president and CEO of Eclipsys.
“The coordinated sales, marketing and development effort between Eclipsys and Microsoft is a very powerful combination. This alliance agreement heightens our business agility and increases our delivery capacity at a time of significant investment in the next generation of health system solutions.”
“Eclipsys joins a growing number of companies across many industries that are finding the Microsoft platform and .NET to be the right choices to improve developer productivity and to deliver flexible applications faster,”
said Sanjay Parthasarathy, corporate vice president of the Platform Strategy and Partner Group at Microsoft.
“Microsoft .NET technologies allow healthcare organizations to achieve a lower total cost of ownership by easily integrating legacy applications with new technologies and enabling them to share information across organizations and platforms.”
The Microsoft-Eclipsys alliance comes at an important time in the healthcare technology industry as momentum increases for the deployment of advanced clinical information technology that helps improve patient safety and reduces medical errors. Solutions for computerized physician order entry (CPOE), such as the SunriseXA advanced clinical solution, transform user workflow by automating communication among clinicians. This eliminates paper-based processes and aids clinical decision-making by providing immediate, secure access to medical content and patient records at the point of care or virtually anywhere. More important, because these solutions automate communication, they are shown to improve patient safety and care delivery. These efforts are supported by patient safety advocates such as The Leapfrog Group and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, which recommend CPOE and automation to reduce the thousands of medical errors estimated to occur annually. Combined with regulatory compliance requirements, these factors will be instrumental in shaping the future of healthcare delivery.
About Eclipsys
Eclipsys is a leading provider of advanced clinical, financial and management information software and service solutions to more than 1,500 healthcare facilities. Eclipsys empowers healthcare organizations to improve patient safety, revenue cycle management and operational efficiency through innovative information solutions. For more information, see http://www.eclipsys.com/ or e-mail [email protected].
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software any time, any place and on any device.
Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
Eclipsys, Eclipsys Corporation and The Outcomes Company are registered trademarks, and SunriseXA and the phrase
“better healthcare through knowledge”
are trademarks of Eclipsys Technologies Corporation.
The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.
Statements in this news release concerning future results, performance or expectations are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. All forward-looking statements included in this document are based upon information available to Eclipsys as of the date hereof and Eclipsys assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Because such statements involve risks and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks include several risks in connection with our SunriseXA strategy, including the uncertainty of the time and costs required to implement the strategy, the potential that our strategy could change, the potential that we may encounter technical difficulties in implementing our strategy, and the potential that the changes to our products may affect customer demand. Other risks include potential financial constraints and other factors faced by the healthcare industry, changing customer requirements and other risks described in the filings of Eclipsys with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2003.
Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages. Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/contactpr.asp .
