The first STARLIMS Microsoft Road Show is history, and after enduring a travel schedule that would make Madonna look like a homebody, it’s a good time to reflect on the messages delivered.

Our team started in Chicago amidst rain and wind, but I guess that’s redundant since I already mentioned Chicago. From there, we crisscrossed the United States, hitting San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, D.C., and Durham. So, powered by deep dish pizza, sourdough bread, baked beans, cheese steaks, and vinegar BBQ respectively, the Microsoft, Atrium Research, and STARLIMS teams presented a compelling message.

Microsoft explained not only their focus in healthcare and the scientific enterprise, but also presented a very cool video introducing how their latest “wow” product, Microsoft Surface, might be employed in the healthcare profession, and at home. One other key message delivered was the tight integration between Microsoft and STARLIMS as a result of our Gold Level partnership, and the fact we are a Microsoft Managed Independent Software Vendor (ISV). The sharing of vision and technological directions means that STARLIMS will always have access the latest tools and an insider’s look at Microsoft’s strategies.

Mike Elliott, CEO of Atrium Research detailed not only the current state of the consumer rush towards electronic laboratory notebook technology, but also the demand for a unified platform. A lot of the growth in the ELN field has been driven by consumer demand, and the breadth and power of informatics solutions such as STARLIMS.
The STARLIMS presentation followed on the heels of the Microsoft and Atrium Research messages, and coalesced the ideas presented into STARLIMS’s unified platform. STARLIMS knew customers were demanding more for their hard-fought budget, and has responded by acting on a few assumptions that Microsoft and Atrium Research have validated as truths in the informatics industry:

• Customers see no reason to purchase separate applications for ELN, Scientific Document Management, inventory, instrument calibration, analyst training, and the like. STARLIMS has responding by tightly integrating these functions, and many others, into our unified platform.
• -Customers are much more comfortable with a single product learning curve. The tolerance for having to develop multiple knowledge transfer pathways has waned.
• IT professionals, often berated for their tendency to be somewhat controlling, are demanding fewer support and maintenance contracts, fewer points of failure, and a simplicity of internal controls. Those same IT professionals are a driving force behind centrally-served, browser-accessed web applications, and STARLIMS has delivered nothing but web-based systems since version 10 was released more than four years ago.
• The informatics architects within companies are ecstatic that STARLIMS has such a robust web services capacity to interface with mission critical systems such as SAP.

Another message delivered during the road show was that, while many informatics suppliers are contracting, or vanishing altogether, STARLIMS has elected to direct a significant amount of revenue back into product research and development. This is not the industry norm by any stretch of the imagination. How many of the most powerful players in the informatics market decided to starve their R&D organizations, and found themselves so hopelessly behind the technological progression of platform technology that they either closed their doors, or were purchased for pennies on the dollar by larger companies hoping to acquire their support contracts while casting an eye towards “migrating” customers to entirely foreign platforms?

STARLIMS researched and invested in Microsoft’s rock-solid technological platforms such as .NET so that when we had to evolve our products to meet time-critical demands, we could do so not only expeditiously, but also with the confidence that the Microsoft platforms are the strongest and most stable in the world. It seemed obvious to us at STARLIMS to team with Microsoft, and curious that some of the suppliers remained bound to archaic platform technology, apparently trading their ability to respond to rapidly-changing demands for innovation for the safety of programming technologies that may not be around tomorrow.

Maybe that is a bit cynical, but it may also be true. Regardless, the underlying message threaded throughout the STARLIMS-Microsoft Road Show can be summarized by the 1980’s era bumper sticker:

“Lead, follow, or get out of the way.”