HP dominates the news again with new announcements for their, later to be released, 3D printing technology called MultiJet Fusion.
The new technology should not only be cheaper, faster and better, it also will be a open platform for manufacturers of materials. That fact was revealed during an interview with the British newspaper, The Register.
Shane Wall, CTO of HP:
“We’ll still have print and supplies but our model will be different; we will open up the platform so people can have other supplies that come in. They’ll [other suppliers] have access to our APIs through an SDK that allows them to programme to the printer itself, and we’ll allow people to come in and do very disruptive new materials that they wouldn’t have been able to do before.
[This is] very different from HP and very game changing,”
So HP will allow 3rd-party manufacturers to develop and produce alternative materials to HP’s proprietary materials. How HP will select their partners or if they open the system completely isn’t clear at this point. This move is very untypical for the usually so protective company. Let´s see how this move will work out.
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