How Can Stratasys and 3D Systems Turn it all Around

[NoahSH]

3D print bureaus are not viable long term because they are a service market in an arena of shifting technology. The best thing they can do is sell the novelty of 3d printing that will eventually wear off. Without a product line of their own, they have a hard time establishing / distinguishing brand identity.

The money is going to be made by the first artists and designers who only print their own products instead of outsourcing. A small shop with big technology making products that no one else has rights to make has no competition. In this rare instance, the technology is feeding the development of the small art studio-turned-production-facility, while the 'big guys' struggle to sell more printers.

At a certain point, I am willing to toss the whole industry away and keep the technology as a vehicle for pioneering my own ideas. I could really care less about how a certain 3d printer manufacturer performs, as long as someone stays around to make a quality machine

[Mike]

3D print bureaus are not viable long term because they are a service market in an arena of shifting technology. The best thing they can do is sell the novelty of 3d printing that will eventually wear off. Without a product line of their own, they have a hard time establishing / distinguishing brand identity.

3D printing service bureaus are not selling the novelty of 3D printing (which is more than 30 years old). They are selling 3D printing's ability to accomplish things that cannot be accomplished via other manufacturing methods. Frequently, it's just rapid prototyping, but sometimes it is also superior cost-effectiveness for short production runs or the inability to produce an object any other way.

All technology is eventually replaced by better technology, but that can take a very long time. Magazines and newspapers are still printed on $1m+ printing presses at service bureaus and the current technology has been around since 1875, with previous printing press technologies dated centuries earlier. I don't foresee a personal 3D printer supplanting something like an Optomec LENS system ($3m+) any time soon, so I believe 3D printing services bureaus could be with us for quite a while – somewhere between 20 and 200 more years.