Shimadzu Left Behind in the Dust
....like feathers in the wind!
Waters Corporation announced on March 9th, 1998 that it signed an exclusive agreement
with Eli Lilly (Indianapolis, IN) to become Lilly's sole provider of liquid chromatography
data management software. Eli Lilly & Company will use Waters Millennium software
(32-bit version) for drug development and quality assurance (QA) purposes worldwide.
According to the pact between the two companies, Lilly will invest an undisclosed sum of
money over the next five years in software and associated equipment to convert some 1300
liquid chromatographs to Waters Millennium chromatography software. (It would
appear that Eli Lilly has found a way to purge their labs of the EZChrom software product
along with the newer Shimadzu Class VP software release.)
Waters was originally selected as a preferred global vendor of liquid
chromatographs in October of 1997. Incredibly, Shimadzu was also named as a supplier to
Eli Lilly according to a carefully crafted company statement issued November 4th, 1997. In
retrospect, there is more news in what Shimadzu didn't proclaim in that press release
versus what they did say! While Shimadzu was selected as "a supplier," there was
no mention of what kind of HPLC products that Shimadzu would be supplying! In addition,
Shimadzu neglected to disclose that they were actually one of three preferred vendors
for HPLC products to Eli Lilly. One might infer from the original company statement that
Shimadzu was "the only supplier" of HPLC products to Eli Lilly.... nothing
could be farther from the truth!
We wouldn't classify Shimadzu's press release of November 4, 1997 as being
contemptuous, deceitful, haughty, insidious, misleading, presumptuous or serpentine, but
we would characterize Shimadzu has NOT being forthcoming and straightforward yet again! It's
been noted before that Shimadzu personnel have a propensity to tell you the things that
you want to hear but they won't necessarily tell you the things that you need to hear!
Shimadzu is a virtual nobody in HPLC & FPLC according to several noteworthy studies
conducted by Phortech International since 1994/95. Frankly, in
light of Waters selection as "the preferred global chromatography standard" for
Eli Lilly & Company, what will be left for Shimadzu to supply.... waste bottles or
plastic tubing perhaps?
n.b. Waters Corporation has worldwide leading positions in three cutting-edge
analytical technologies.... specifically HPLC, mass spectrometry and thermal analysis.
n.b. Waters Corporation believes that Millennium software is the world's leading
chromatography data management product with an installed base of 20,000+ copies.
n.b. Consider reading the testimonial of an FDA scientist and his candid observations
about EZChrom's vices!
Expect Less Value and More Disappointment from Shimadzu
This page was last 
12/31/00