April 2nd, 2009
Intel and GE put $25 million per year each into monitors
Intel and General Electric have signed a co-marketing agreement covering their wireless monitoring systems.
Intel delivered its Health Guide to the market a year ago, and went through a product launch in October. But within the health care space it does not have a big brand name.
GE does. It also has a system it calls QuietCare which also does wireless monitoring and is sold to nursing homes.
Under the agreement, announced with some fanfare by CEOs Paul Otellini of Intel and Jeff Immelt of GE, each company will put $25 million per year, over five years, into the joint venture. This led them to trumpet a $250 million investment.
The two companies will do research jointly, but GE Healthcare will handle the marketing, which takes that hassle off Intel’s plate. The two companies think the telehealth market will be worth $3 billion this year and $7.7 billion by 2012.
When I first started writing about the idea of such monitors, linked to wireless broadband, in 2003, I referred to it as “Always-On” technology. The applications live on the network and the collection points are interfaces between sensors and the Internet, with some intelligence for preliminary analysis.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 04/02/09
