Business

Lumeris, a rapidly emerging healthcare technology company has chosen Austin to build a software engineering and innovation center. Lumeris has immediate requirements for 100 software engineers, project managers and consultants and major expansion plans in 2013 and beyond.

Lumeris develops and deploys cloud-based technologies and business practices that connect and transition physicians, patients, hospitals and health plans into “accountable delivery systems” — systems proven to deliver better health care at lower costs. These technologies tackle the U.S. health care system’s two biggest challenges — improving quality and reducing the country’s per capita healthcare expense.

The U.S. market that provides the best opportunities for small businesses to grow and prosper is Austin, which also finished first in On Numbers’ rankings for 2011 and 2010. More >

Mega Millions fever is sweeping Austin stores as the deadline nears for the Friday night drawing. Ticket buyers have a greater chance of getting struck by lightning than winning the Mega Millions jackpot, still the odds don’t seem to matter much when the stakes are so high. More >

Austin approved $8.6 million in tax breaks Thursday for Apple Inc., likely paving the way for the company to build a facility that it says will bring up to 3,600 jobs here. More >

Most of the news around Austin this week is centered around SXSW, naturally, but Texas Governor (and erstwhile presidential candidate) Rick Perry broke some news today that’s unrelated, but still Austin-relevant. Apple, it seems, which has been slowly growing its presence in the state’s tech oasis, chose SXSW weekend as an auspicious time to announce a major new campus in Austin.

There isn’t much known about the campus or its purpose, but Perry’s announcement does note that the price tag is a hefty $304 million, so it’s more than just a new building or two on the existing Riata Vista Circle. It’s estimated that it will add 3,600 jobs over the next decade, doubling Apple’s employment in the area.

The Texas Advanced Computing Center(TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin today announced it has received a commitment of $10 million from the O’Donnell Foundation to advance data-driven science, also called data-enabled or data-intensive science. More >

City of Austin staff has unveiled a prioritized list of $1.5 billion in capital improvement projects, or enhancements to roads and buildings, for a 15-member citizen task force to parse through and prioritize for a recommendation to Austin City Council. More >