I think there is a little more to the story... If you remember, Brian posted a story (about a month ago???) in which Auto_Desk was going to do an open source printer that was fully supported by their software. One of the big claims to fame was it was going to run some new 3D-Printer OS called Spark. Why does the Auto_Desk 3D-Printer need its own OS? Maybe because it is going to have 'features' that existing printers do not have???

I would not be surprised to see the Auto_Desk 3D-Printer use a partnership with somebody else to support the goals of their printer. (Maybe this company???) And did you notice... A big part of why this is so 'good' is because of increased security with the 'cloud' to get designs. In other words... They want to lock down the designs they sell you so you can only print as many as you pay for.

Well, they had better have some super good content that makes people willing to put up with this non-sense. Or they won't get very far. I think we can see a trend developing here.

PS. I'm so glad they are going to enable 'collaboration' among 3D-Printer owners!!! I would be totally lost without their effort!