GE, Microsoft Form Health Care Software Joint Venture

Mergers & Acquisitions In December 2011, General Electric Co. and Microsoft Corp. announced plans to form a joint venture to develop and sell software systems to make it easier for health care organizations and professionals to use real-time, system-wide intelligence to improve health care quality and the patient experience. The partners seek to develop an open platform that will give health care providers and independent software vendors the ability to develop a new generation of clinical applications. The companies have not disclosed the financial terms of the deal but indicated that they are rolling out Microsoft's Amalga . . .