Cedara Software Corp., an independent developer of medical software technologies for the global healthcare market, recently announced that it has signed an MOU with IBM China.

The agreement commits both companies to work together to explore and identify opportunities in the Chinese market. Under the terms of the agreement, IBM and Cedara will develop a channel strategy. Both companies will promote Cedara software and IBM hardware and integrate it with their business partners' solutions.

"IBM values the Chinese market especially in the healthcare domain, and we are pleased to be working with Cedara in that market space. With Cedara's extensive experience and expertise in healthcare imaging and our hardware platform advantage, this complementary relationship can deliver a win-win solution to China's large healthcare market," said Mr. Liu, Huan Shi, General Manager, Public Sector of IBM China.

Cedara's product line is well suited to the Chinese market. Cedara's PACS product suite is designed to meet the image management needs of the entire healthcare enterprise. The suite includes an image archiving and distribution system (Cedara I-Store), diagnostic review workstation (Cedara I-Softview), web-based image distribution server (Cedara I-Reach), and hospital system interface products. This easy-to-integrate PACS is used to review, analyze, store and distribute medical images that allow system integrators to build robust, flexible, and scalable image storage management solutions. Both IBM and Cedara intend to maximize opportunities with their partners. For example, both companies will participate in the B-Soft user group meeting this month in China. B-Soft is one of China's top Hospital Information Systems (HIS) companies with a customer base of 700 hospitals.