I think that the market is divided. You have the commercial rapid prototyping market the includes the exotics/metals etc. that are limited in terms of sales of machines and services. When we use these services they are project specific and not day to day.

You have the "what if" prototyping from the commercial side. Engineering uses the technology to go through iterations before sending out for more costly urethane casts, CNC machined, injection molded and die cast parts. This market tied to corporations with deep pockets. This is what propped those companies up.

Now you have the open source 3D printing market that has boomed at a low cost solution for the day to day printing market. There is little to protect with IP. When Stratasys patents expire there is little left in the FDM market to protect. The open source market outpaces anything the major corporations can do.

So why invest on a large scale in a major company acquisition? It always has been a niche market and it's getting smaller. I would think that they will stay staus quo but I am also not an investor.