Booth Designs and General Impression
GE next to PHILIPS in the North Hall. Siemens Healthineers and Canon in the South Hall and adjacent to Siemens the new big boy from China — United Imaging. This company showed a full line of diagnostic imaging products that even included a linear accelerator and a dynamic full-body PET system. Lots of questions regarding their technology acquisition, the way they deal with IP issues, and the background financing. I am sure that we will see some sideline battles between the established OEM’s and them in the near future.

I generally liked the booth designs and setups of the 4 large providers. Siemens had a two floor open concept with the big systems towards the aisles and the workstations in the middle (I personally believe the other way around would be better) ... and they had an INNOVATION Lounge — access with NDA. So I cannot report what I saw, but if I could it would not be extremely surprising to the “expert”. The Philips booth again quite colorful with only few large systems openly placed. Canon (former “Toshiba” - maybe I have it down by next year) single floor again in striking red and finally GE with inside and outside screens completely circumventing the booth on a second floor height. And they used warm wood appliances. Difficult decision for the in-official MF booth competition ... after consultation with me and myself I will award the first price this year to Philips very closely followed by Siemens and GE (tied). As long as Canon has this extremely thick carpet they will never win!

Just a couple of short notes on other vendors: Samsung greatly reduced presence (and also no technical innovations as far as I could tell ... but I could not find someone who was able and willing to show me around) and Carestream even more “orange”. And again, United Imaging with a system packed large booth, but with little traffic ... maybe the attendees are still skeptical ... we will observe on whether that will change next year.

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