[InfiniteRand]

The press release is a bit contradictory. It says the reason things are so complex is because of a profit motive, but also the reason that they will succeed where others did not is because they are working for a profit. Also, they are going to trim all the bells and whistles but they are not going to be strictly functional.

All that being said I do think this venture is fitting into an emerging niche in the market place due to the low cost of designing/re-designing devices. Things like 3-D printers for prototyping, etc. means that the cost to develop a medical device does not require the profit margin of a high-end medical device in order to get back costs.

[koji]

Functionality will not be made less of a priority, but we are making design and usability equally as important. Doing so helps cut down on training and support required for equipment, which is where many companies make their real revenue (similar to enterprise software charging support subscriptions). Because this is where so many established companies make their margin, there is little incentive to make their equipment easier to use. They also have built up large support staffs for this purpose.

By removing the need to support large support staffs, and reducing our sales team requirements by aiming at markets outside of large hospital institutions, we are able to keep our overhead low compared to the competition.

I hope that makes thing a bit more clear, but happy to elaborate if you like!

[bkolko]

Just a quick comment to add: In many ways, what we're doing would probably not have been possible ten years ago. The markets were different, and so was the technology that enables us to implement changes to support and training. In addition, technologies that are facilitating rapid prototyping in other industries are just as essential to cutting down development time and costs for medical devices.