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With Nokia’s sale of its devices and services business to Microsoft and BlackBerry in the midst of its own sale, it’s difficult to remember their once-dominating position in the mobile industry. Just a few short years ago, Nokia was responsible for over 50% of smartphone sales and BlackBerry had a market cap of $47 billion.

Of course, it was Apple’s disruptive iPhone that changed everything. Disruptive innovations have a habit of killing the old and shifting entire industries, crowning many winners and losers along the way. But what other potential disruptive innovations are out there? While still in its infancy, 3-D printing certainly displays incredible potential to change the world.

What is 3-D printing?

For those not familiar with 3-D printing, think of “Star Trek’s” fictional replicators. You instruct the computer to make anything you want and it magically appears. Translated into today’s technology, you upload computerized blueprints from your computer to a 3-D printer, a box the size of a microwave or washing machine, which then melts plastic threads (or other materials) bit by bit, layer by layer, similar to adding Lego blocks one on top of another. Eventually, it solidifies into the product you wanted.

What have people managed to print? Many things from simple figurines to plumbing parts are made every day now. But the imagination really is the limit here — there’s been sculptures made from sand, organs made from tissue, cars, guns and even NASA rocket engines.

Why is 3-D printing so potentially disruptive? It democratizes manufacturing capability. Newly democratized capabilities that removed a barrier or high cost of entry have a history of upending industries due to the disappearance of the wide moat or competitive advantage held by the established companies.

For example, home computing and blogs allowed everyday people to write their own content and helped to decimate the traditional printing industry, where printing presses cost millions to make. Widespread software development kits such as free Android programming kits or $99 iOS kits have turned traditional software development and industries like videogames on their heads.

Who gains and loses?

But what will 3-D printing do to today’s industries? While the answer is not yet obvious, potential answers abound. Current common printing technology is limited to small, less sophisticated odds and ends such as small figurines and machinery parts. Those industries are low margin, high economy-of-scale and mainly made by ultracheap foreign labor. While manufacturing small housing supplies for Home Depot or tourist souvenir trinkets for roadside shops could be big business to some, they’re not going to cause a revolution in manufacturing — with the possible exception of China with its disproportionate share of small niche manufacturers.

But the possibilities of 3-D printing really lie in the future, after advances make complicated parts easier to create. Companies that are heavy consumers of parts and supplies such as the auto makers may stand to benefit as their supply-chain cost and infrastructure changes. Already there have been major 3-D printing inroads in fields ranging from automotive to aerospace to education and even health care.

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