[delphidb96]

Let's consider feature sets and prices, shall we? First, here's what MedTab has to say about its hardware.

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The MedTab includes the following rich feature set:

Portable – 12 Ounces, measuring 5.5” X 7.5” X 0. 5” which comfortably fits a lab coat pocket

High Resolution Display – 1024x768 pixels using a proprietary E-Ink high contrast, low power “digital paper” display.

Rugged – capable of withstanding 30g impact

Touch Screen (including pen for notations)

Intel 624MHz Processor

WinCE OS

Bluetooth for audio or data transfer

Fingerprint scanner

Audio In/Out

802.11/g WIFI

Cisco’s OEM security Client– supporting state of the art wireless security

EmanoTec has extensively modified WinCE to support this radically new and different display technology. This makes porting an existing application to MedTab as simple as installing it on a standard PDA.

Most EMR systems require a thin client which is either a standard web browser or a custom client. Many of the newer EMR systems use standard web browsers as their client. MedTab provides Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) which has been modified to be an OS shell and presents itself in kiosk mode. Thus, the device is secure from user tampering and the entire screen is available to the backend system. MedTab uses WinCE as its OS which most vendors support if they have a custom client. The most common customer client is Citrix which supports WinCE.

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Going down the list:

The 8" display, in and of itself, costs a manufacturer around $150 in OEM quantities and the display controller board will add another $20-$30 and touch-screen will add another $10-$15 (I know, I've had plenty of reason to check while working on the concept of a custom ereader for NAEB.), while the rest of the features of the SBC (single board computer) - which provides the power to the actual computing process - runs about $50 in OEM quantity. And except for the 'ruggedized' case and the fingerprint scanner, every single 'feature' listed above in the list is *STANDARD* on most of the SBCs! So except for those two items in the list, we can ignore any claims of 'special engineering and design'. As well as the idea that these now-ignored features somehow added to the cost of the device.

Okay, what about the ruggedization? Have you ever dropped your Dell Axim X51V? (Which has exactly the feature set found here - again, minus the fingerprint scanning.) I have. From about five feet, outside its case, onto a tile floor. Guess what? It still *WORKED*! Thing is, as there are no spinning hard drives to get destroyed when the read/write arm ploughes into the surface of the drive, most of what's in these devices are pretty rugged and securely attached already. If the connection to the battery or if the screen itself doesn't crack and shatter, the device probably won't stop working.

That brings up fingerprint scanning. It's so *complex* - not - that at least *THREE* different laptops are offered with it built in. For no significant increase in price. Let us be real here. Adding in the hardware to scan a fingerprint for security purposes adds about another $30 to the cost.

That leaves all the rest of the hardware, which will add about $30-$40 to the cost. End total cost per unit hardware is almost certainly about $300, not the $1,000 someone else opined. And all of the major stuff has been developed by MedTab's suppliers - at most, they designed the case, although many manufacturers will even do that for you!

Now on to the software.

First and foremost, WinCE - which is most properly called by the name given by Microsoft for this generation - Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0! Guess what! The primary manufacturer (read *ONLY* volume manufacturer) of e-ink displays has *ALREADY* designed a full and custom interface between its display/controller and WinMobile5! It, PVI, *GIVES* it away to their customers!

And as for porting applications to MedTab's device, well, has *ANYONE* tried developing for WinMobile??? Easy? Not really as you're pretty much limited to Visual Studio, Mono, and Delphi, which, while they *can* develop WinMobile apps, really are designed for making full-blown Windoze apps. But that's a darn sight easier than porting an app made for Windoze to WinMobile! And porting from a Linux app to WinMobile is enough to cause haxxors to cry! But once it is done - once - the process of inserting new features is simple.

Now we get to the extensively modified IE shell. Hunh? Since when? And making the IE shell the WinMobile shell is a nifty trick, but it's been so well documented that the haxxor's blind, deaf and dum grandmother could do it after only 15 minute of programming lessons on her first computer.

So that dispenses the myth of software costs.

Nope, this unit is priced such because they know doctors want to have big tax-writeoffs and dont' want to be bothered with maintaining a programmer in-house.

Derek