JEH: We certainly have seen a slow-down in the market. We saw it coming in the fall [of 2008]. The impact on the medical device and imaging market came later than in other sectors. But it certainly had an impact on the investment climate and the tendency is that expensive high capital goods are more affected. Certain other segments in the medical imaging market might have seen improvement because people might select cheaper solutions or upgrade solutions rather than investing in totally new solutions. That is something we all are thinking about--in what way can we capitalize on those conditions?

But the climate is quite a bit tougher [than in the past]. We saw the big manufacturers report a weaker Q1 but it is not as dramatic as in other sectors. So it is far from being a collapse and actually there is limited growth. The 5-6% annual growth we have seen has slowed to about half of that. But still it is a sound market and there is an underlying demand for these solutions.

DM: Does your company also produce software upgrades to existing equipment that the OEMs could then install?

JEH: Yes. That is something we can offer the market. Indirectly it prolongs the lifetime of the product.

DM: What influence do software upgrades have on the market?

JEH: We recently had an X-ray customer that introduced our technology into its device. In this case it was an X-ray device and it was introduced as a new release, part of other improvements done by the manufacturer. But they also offered [image enhancement] as an upgrade release to their existing customers because they saw the benefit. It's like a PC and you upgrade your software on a regular basis. We see this happen from time to time. It is not that common but I would say the trend is that it is becoming a bit more common.

DM: How does your software work?

JEH: One has to look at the different segments of the market. On one hand, you have the X-ray market, the biggest segment. X-ray procedure is the most common medical imaging procedure today. That has been moving from analog film based to digital based where you look at the images on a high resolution display. When it comes to X-ray, image enhancement improvements are achieved in many different aspects such as removing unwanted noise and graininess. There are also other parts of the X-ray image that can benefit from image enhancements such as the contrast of edges. When you look at small details in an X-ray image, details can be very important in certain procedures. We work with hundreds of parameters to achieve the optimal image quality. We do this together with clinical experts, including our customers' experts, to reach the optimal level on a specific device. It is always customized for a specific device. It is not like a plug-and-play where you use our software. It is customized for the purpose of reaching the optimal image quality based on each customer's specific goals.

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