Whitman: HP to Intro 3D Printer Technology in June

In a shareholder meeting March 19, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) chief executive Meg Whitman equated current 3D printing technology with “watching ice melt,” suggesting that the vendor can do better than what’s currently available on the market.

As recounted by PC World, in responding to a shareholder asking about HP’s interest in 3D printing, Whitman also complained about the less-than-stellar quality of objects printed on 3D machinery.

But her grumbling ostensibly set the stage to tell shareholders that HP will enter the 3D-printing market in some capacity in June. It’s not clear if the vendor will introduce a 3D printer at that time or merely show off what it’s been working on all those months, but the working hypothesis is that it will be a business-oriented unit faster and better than what’s out there now.

“We believe we have solved both these problems and we’ll be making a big technology announcement in June around how we are going to approach this,” Whitman said.

At this point, 3D printing’s niche appeal mostly has been confined to business use—the machines can produce prototypes, design molds and even engage in onesy-twosy production such as smartphone cases, toys and jewelry—but the consumer market hasn’t picked up on it.

Still, researcher Gartner figures the segment has plenty of room to grow, forecasting enterprise and consumer 3D printer shipments by 2017 to rise to some 1.1 million units from the current 38,000 units, and spending to reach $5.7 billion from the current $288 million.

Without going into detail, Whitman told shareholders the vendor will “focus on the business side before we get to the consumer side. We think the bigger market will be in the enterprise space,” she said.

In January, distributor Ingram Micro (IM) began testing the waters of the 3D printer market with two new supplier deals and an expanded presence for the technology inside its two-year-old Document Imaging business unit. Ingram has mapped its new 3D-printer business to vertical markets where it anticipates the greatest demand and potential—education, health care, retail, manufacturing and design.