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Strategies & Market Trends : The New Economy and its Winners -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill Harmond who wrote (56713)	3/8/2014 3:46:24 PM
From: Doren	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 57684

My sentiments exactly, I seem to be a contrarian on this sector, missing out on profits, because I think the mighty will fall hard and fast eventually. And how does one short a story? The idea that printers are going to be as popular as paper printers is hard to see for me. I can see some eventual use printing parts for consumer goods... maybe. My washing machine once needed some plastic parts... actually nylon, they had to be pretty tough. Cost me $15 or so. Cost me maybe $1 printed out on a $300 3D printer. Walking cane tips? Drink coasters? Just for fun? That's what the internet is for. Trading pictures on Facebook instead of printing pictures. Ink is expensive. The printed items are not smooth surfaced, with accurate dimensional tolerances, like milled aluminum or injection molded plastic. The surfaces are rough even at the high end. Printed metal at the high end isn't as strong as cast and milled. They'll probably get better eventually... eventually. Designing parts and devices using 3D software? That's a really high end skill. Not many people have those skills. If they are parts that have to fit together with close tolerances home systems or even mid range systems don't cut it. And lastly... can anyone think of a paper printer company that did spectacularly well? Brother Cannon Kodak HP Lexmark Xerox en.wikipedia.org Not exactly a list of companies that made any investors rich in the past 20 years. I'm still thinking PRLB is going to be the missing link for designers. They do online ordered, 3D printing, injection molding, and high end computerized machining of all kinds. Heavily dependent on specialized software. They specialize in short runs and fast delivery. I can see this business growing as injection molded metal technology gets better, other technologies for shaping and molding plastics gets better, and high end 3D printing matures. Think of this like online printing, except much more complicated, and with orders of efficiency. The high end production machines are beyond what most businesses can justify, never mind the customized software and data centers. Are they going to expand wildly? Maybe not, that it the question. New CEO seems like she has what they need though.