Visitors From Afar

As one of only a few sites running Agfa IMPAX 6.5, we were asked to host some visitors from afar, who are using an earlier version of IMPAX. They must decide if they should

1. Stick with what they have, which includes using another vendor's product for web-access
2. Move to IMPAX 6, which is why they came here, or
3. Jump ship to another vendor

Tough choices. I must add that their site has about a zillion Terabytes of data, and the thought of migrating is painful, and the cost steep, though still in the realm of possibility.

They group was interested in speaking to me, The Dalai Lama of PACS, in hopes that I might have some wisdom beyond the rather high level of expertise these folks brought with them. Frankly, I suspect they were disappointed. I gave a rather disjointed tour through IMPAX 6.5, and it had the bad taste to actually run properly for the visitors, just like your car won't make that annoying noise once you actually get it to the shop. 

I've chronicled our trials and tribulations with IMPAX 6.x over the years, so I won't rehash them here. Suffice it to say that when it works, it works OK. When it doesn't work, well, just ask the folks in Western Australia how much fun that can be.

They say familiarity breeds contempt, but in my experience, I think familiarity more commonly breeds comfort, or at least complacency. It's hard to diss an IMPAX completely, especially when we've had mostly smooth sailing. The most recent gripe hasn't been with IMPAX per se, but with an integration to a digital voice system that got more and more wonky until it quit altogether following server upgrades. There have been numerous little things like this which get us upset. Add that to the old tool-toggling crap, and to weird things like the way someone else can dive into a study I'm already reading, and you have those special things that drive me to drink...more than I already do.

What I can say with confidence is that Agfa's upcoming Agility, IMPAX 7, if you will, will be significantly different, and almost certainly better, than its predecessor.  This should probably figure in our visitors' equation somewhere. Does that answer the question?