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Alcon’s Ivy discontinued
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FORT WORTH, Texas — The landscape of ophthalmic practice management systems is in transition with the recent decision by Alcon Laboratories to discontinue the support of its Classic Ivy Practice Management System.
In a letter to Ivy customers, C. Allen Baker, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Alcon Laboratories, Inc., said, “We regret the necessity of this announcement and the frustration the obsolescence of the Ivy technology may cause.”
In February 1998, Alcon Laboratories announced that it would discontinue the development and expansion of Ivy. At that time, customers were informed of the change and were assured that existing customers would continue to receive support “as long as technically possible.” The company recently informed customers that Feb. 1, 2002, would be the ending date for its support of Ivy.
In his letter to Ivy customers, Mr. Baker said, “We believe the time has come for you to transfer to another practice management system. We have found that many practices have required up to a year for transition to another system.” To assist customers in the transition process, Alcon Laboratories is providing, at no cost, “Alternative Computer Selection” classes in various cities across the United States to help its customers develop plans to purchase and transfer to a new system. Alcon’s Web site (www.alconlabs.com) has detailed information on agendas and schedules of these classes, plus registration forms.
The DOS-based Classic Ivy system has been on the market since the early 1980s. Alcon purchased it in 1987 from Ivy Technologies Inc. With the advent of Windows-based computers and networks, Alcon announced that it would develop WinIvy — a Windows version — in 1995. That, however, did not come to pass and ushered in the technology’s ultimate demise. At the beginning of 1998, Alcon dropped the WinIvy plan, based on its assessment that the long-term needs of ongoing development, implementation and maintenance of a complex rational database for Windows was too technical in the rapidly evolving information technology marketplace.
After the decision was made to discontinue the Classic Ivy technology, Barry Caldwell, of Alcon, said, “The classic Ivy technology is a DOS-based system that is more than 15 years old. The technical challenges of keeping the system alive are getting more and more difficult everyday. We do not want our customers to start up their system one day and find that it will no longer function for them. We want to help in the process as much as possible, so that our customers have time to chose their next practice management system that will best suit their needs.”
For Your Information:
- Barry Caldwell can be reached at Alcon Laboratories, 6201 South Freeway, Fort Worth, TX 76134; (800) 695-6991, ext 4730; fax: (817) 551-9880; e-mail: barry.caldwell@alconlabs.com.