Agilent Technologies Joins DriverCentral.net to Promote Multivendor Chromatography System Interoperability

Multivendor instrument connectivity is a core need in many laboratories because scientists often operate diverse instrumentation from multiple vendors in a single laboratory. For efficient lab operation and easy sharing of instruments and data, labs require a single data system to manage all their instruments and create reports in a common format.

Control for multivendor instrumentation is a core functionality of Agilent's EZChrom Elite CDS and OpenLAB enterprise platforms, with support for more than 20 vendors.

Led by Persistent, DriverCentral.net is the industry's first independent device-driver portal for analytical instrument driver purchase. DriverCentral is seen as a breakthrough for purchasing and managing drivers for analytical instruments.

Agilent is collaborating with Persistent Systems in three main ways:

* Transferring many of its non-Agilent instrument drivers to Persistent Systems for further development and support;
* Providing documentation on its RC.NET technology to convert legacy drivers to the new standard and develop new drivers based on RC.NET; and
* Joining DriverCentral.net to make its own analytical instrument drivers available through the portal.

Agilent supports open systems and open access to the RC.NET standard so that customers can choose instrumentation from other vendors, when necessary, while still maintaining their Agilent data system, said Bruce von Herrmann, vice president and general manager of Agilent's Software and Informatics Business Unit. We understand the need to maintain a familiar software user interface and workflow. Additionally, with this partnership we strengthen our commitment to open architecture and open systems, the foundation of our OpenLAB brand. This is the latest example of end-user benefits from Agilent's 15-year relationship with Persistent.

We see Agilent joining the DriverCentral.net portal as a significant step and are excited about the value our partnership brings to both the end users and instrument manufacturers, said Yesh Subramanian, senior vice president, Life Sciences and Healthcare, Persistent Systems. Persistent has deep experience in the development of software for the analytical market, and by leveraging Agilent RC.NET technology, we are setting the stage to offer our customers advanced instrument drivers at effective development cost and faster time-to-market. We also see this as a great opportunity for inviting other instrument and CDS manufacturers to join DriverCentral.