In Wednesday’s meeting with shareholders, Hewlett-Packard HPQ +0.6% president and CEO Meg Whitman said something about her company that some analysts and investors have wanted to hear for quite some time: “We are hot on the case of 3D printing.” To 3D printing bulls, this and her subsequent hint that HP will have a big 3D printing announcement by June of this year was likely the highlight of the shareholder meeting. But to those watching 3D printing companies like ExOne, 3D Systems DDD -3.72% and Stratasys trade well in the red in Thursday trading, HP’s pursuit of a developing and unproved technology could seem misguided.
To HP’s credit, they’re hardly rushing into 3D printing marketplace. The company had an agreement in 2010 to market HP-branded Stratasys 3D printers, but the deal dissolved in 2012. More recently, HP has provided inkjet printheads to Z Corp, a 3D printing company that is now owned by 3D Systems. And in yesterday’s shareholder meeting, even Whitman acknowledged that 3D printing as an industry has some areas it needs to improve before it goes mainstream.
“Have you ever watched a 3D printer print?” she asked in response to a shareholder question on the subject. “It is like watching ice melt.” She also noted that the quality of 3D-printed objects isn’t as good as it should be — but Whitman thinks that HP has solved both of those problems, hence the “big technology announcement” that is planned for June. Though Whitman did not elaborate on exactly what this announcement will include, she did say that whatever HP offers will “focus on business side before we get to the consumer side. We think the bigger market will be in enterprise space,” helping companies manufacture parts and test prototypes rather than helping regular folks print Hershey Kisses at home.
