George. Brian. You guys are wearing me down on this metal prototyping strategy I envision for Stratasys. That's one of the challenges of investing in technology companies...trying to figure out which projects R&D money should be allocated towards and then later comparing this to the actual projects a company decides to undertake. (This is part of my investment verification process.) To often I have discovered other technology companies frivilously burning R&D cash on projects that won't have market acceptance nor provide an acceptable return in the future. Because small companies have very limited resources, mistakes in their product plans can be devastating to shareholder value.
So I'll kick out two more thoughts on metal prototyping before giving it a rest.
1. Could Stratasys build an "integrated" or complimentary machine that aids in the process of spray metal tooling? Could this machine be made office friendly?
2. Here is an excerpt from an interesting article from Machine Design, dated January 1995 (yes, that's right... 1995): "An engineer at Tufts University has developed a rapid prototyper that turns out metal models strong enough to function as the real product or to be used to create a mold. ...A plasma arc melts wire to provide the metal slices, and the speed of the wire feed determines the thickness of the layers. Currently, the system uses steel and aluminum, but any metal can be used, providing the plasma arc is adjusted to heat it to its melting point." WHOA, this sounds like the beginning of a metal prototyping machine to me!! (However, its probably not office friendly.)
Maybe I'll give Tufts a call and follow-up on where this project ended up. (Brian, MIT use to be my old stomping ground but I've been real mad at the scientists there since they told me in 1994 that the internet would take at least 10 years to be commercialized! <vbG> Also, MIT's 3D printing technology never really found a well-commericalized home IMHO.)
After tossing out these points for you guys to respond to, I'll bury this metal prototyping discussion for good. But remember Stratasys' recent announcement: "Crump concluded, 'Stratasys is embarking on a variety of new research development projects which should have a positive future effect and enhance long term shareholder value. The development efforts are related to *new* applications based on our current technology. The company intends to expense most of these research and development costs as incurred. As a result, Stratasys' earnings in the first half of 1997 may be adversely affected.'"
See, I'm not that crazy afterall. <g>
Regards,
David |
