Rapid Prototyping Equipment Financing
The Potential For Surprise
One other aspect of the rapid prototyping industry bears watching: The rise of third party technology firms. Independent companies that support and extend the life of aging high-end RP platforms seem to be growing. To the extent they can, they fill the gap vendors have left between new high-end systems and low-end systems. These are firms worth knowing because they provide a unique perspective on RP hardware; they want users to keep it in use as long as possible.
Independent third-party participants in the RP industry provide new and used systems, upgrades, service and materials. They are small firms, but you shouldn't take them lightly; they have a lot of know-how.
With a few notable exceptions, their efforts are focused on established and mature platforms, not emerging ones. Platform vendors often try to keep information about their newer systems to themselves, making it hard for third parties to obtain spare parts or detailed technical knowledge.
But the platform makers can't lock third parties out forever. The third parties are too clever, and they have consistently figured out how to obtain replacement components that equal or exceed the specifications of the parts in original systems. Once a platform becomes popular, the independents can have a pretty big impact.
One of the more visible battlegrounds between platform makers and third parties is in maintenance. For instance, Integra Services International, just by making its service alternative known in the market, forced 3D to slash its maintenance prices for SLS platforms.
Envisiontec hopes its Perfactory
will be a Viper wiper
Third parties, more than primary vendors, add to the longevity of older platforms. As long as an older platform can be properly supported and as long as it can be fed a wide enough range of materials, it can remain in productive use. At a sufficiently low price, and with sufficiently low running costs, an older RP platform offers the economies of a low-end machine along with the technical features of a high-end system. The best example is the SLA-500, which has been around for more than ten years.
Eventually, increasing demand for high accuracy and for new materials will wipe out the SLA-500, but it's not possible to say precisely what eventually means.
As the third parties become more proficient, vendors of both high-end and low-end system will have to compete with their own legacy platforms in addition to competing with each other in the market for new equipment. While vendors might not like competing with their own older products any more than they like wrestling competitors, no vendor can simply kill off its mature platforms, particularly where the platforms get good third party support.
If a vendor is seen as actively crippling its own older systems, customers will soon realize the very same thing is likely to happen to new platforms the company is selling. This puts pressure on platform vendors to provide real improvements in successive generations of their products and restrain their efforts to force users of older platforms to move. 3D is one example of a platform maker that has been constrained in its efforts to knock out mature products by negative means; the vendor has to concentrate its efforts on put more effort into making new platforms more attractive rather than making older platforms less practical.
The obvious solution for a vendor is to introduce new platforms that offer irresistible benefits to users of older platforms. But this is easier said than done. Sometimes older platforms are hard to beat. Sometimes that hot new platform won't come from the incumbent vendor but instead from a new entrant in the RP industry. And, for some users, the next big thing is a third-party upgrade of a mature platform.
Older RP platforms returning from the dead or dying make the big RP vendors a little nervous; the appearance of hot new products from new vendors really gives them the jitters. This is true even though incumbency is a very big factor in every customer's equipment selection process.
So it's hard to break into RP. New entrants deserve a lot of credit not only for their engineering ideas but for their guts, too. They are taking a big chance. They show up with only one platform and often with a limited range of materials. Still, there is one big factor in their favor: RP is a young technology, and RP platform users are going to be interested in learning about any new platform that shows promise, whether or not they eventually buy one.
If the new vendors have to base their hopes on a lot of guesswork about what will catch on, imagine how hard it is for established platform makers looking at emerging products to decide whether they have to react or not. Users are in even worse shape; they are the last people who can feel confident about what the future will have in store.
Nevertheless, the RP industry is growing and it does reward innovation. As a result, there is a real likelihood that new entrants will continue to emerge. Some will succeed, moving the industry forward and displacing former leaders.
At the same time, makers of RP materials are hoping to bring dramatic change to the industry. Sometimes their efforts will change the relative appeal of various established platforms, and sometimes their new products will turn a niche platform into a mainstream RP system.
Finally, there is one more battlefront, and it is going to always be controversial: the user interface. Vendors can make RP platforms easier to use but this involves a trade-off. When an RP platform's interface becomes friendly, it also hides complex, confusing or touchy controls that some users would prefer to have within easy reach. Critics of friendly interfaces may say a system has been dumbed down, and they have a point. On the other hand, there are users who want their platforms to do more of the job automatically. It's largely a matter of taste, but platform vendors may not be able to support two front ends, one friendly and the other aimed at the most sophisticated users. The industry has not found a balance point and even if it does it might only find it temporary, because the nature of the user base changes all the time.
All this turmoil is bound to be good for the RP world as a whole in the long run. Yet in the short run, change is challenging to every participant: to vendors, to users and, yes, to equipment leasing companies.
We love all the action. But we can't say it doesn't make us nervous.
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