This June 4, 2014 Analysis of a "Plain Paper 3D Printer" from MCor really got me thinking |
The importance of a name - examples
The Amazon product more or less lives up to the rumors (see "How 3D Works on the Amazon Fire Phone"), but the company instead named the viewing
feature “Dynamic Perspective” to describe its integration of multiple cameras and
software that give the user a 3D effect on the phone’s screen. I applaud
Amazon’s precision in naming, even if (or because) “3D” is so widely used these
days in describing so many diverse products and features. But one wonders if
“Dynamic Perspective” is going against the tide. From my perspective (arguably more static than dynamic), as a
long-time tech industry veteran as well as more recently a professor of
Marketing, naming (more than just branding) really can make a huge difference!
I have often asserted that for a new product or service to
be successful in the market, it needs to have a good descriptive name or at least
catchy label, either at the category and/or brand level. A
recent example for me was the Apple iPad – which came upon (despite some early
disparagement) a simple, catchy product name to go with a nascent category
moniker ("tablet computer"). But another of my favorite examples comes from way
back, and that is the solution category called “desktop publishing”. This two-word
phrase really captured much of what was going on in the early days, with
products like Apple’s LaserWriter, with its Adobe Pagemaker, the Mac and Aldus
PageMaker. (Slightly later, of course, it was the HP LaserJet combined with
some of the earliest versions of Microsoft Windows running on an IBM
PC-compatible computer, equipped with PageMaker or other page composition
software.)
Aldus PageMaker software was a key component to the "Desktop Publishing" solution - a great category label |
That's one of my favorite positive examples, and one more negative (that
turns positive) was when I saw the development and launch of scanning products meant to be shared in the office by multiple users. Apparently the best name
that had floated to the top for this product during its development was “network scanner”, following in
the heels of successful “network printers”. The Network Scanner was far
from successful, but a few years later the small number of customers who
actually had figured out how to use it described their activity as including “digital
sending” documents. Thus the product in its newer version was renamed as a “Digital Sender” and became quite popular.
Mixing labels – the
Plain Paper 3D Printer
So back to the Plain-paper 3D Paper. Whether or not "3D phones" (or 3D TVs, or whatever) make sense or become popular, we
do find “3D” as being a very pervasive buzzword these days, and that includes
its combination with “printing”. 3D printing has been around for quite some
time, of course, but the last couple of years has seen the interest spike tremendously,
among technology futurists, Wall Street analysts, and Kickstarter enthusiasts,
among others. But when I came across a story about a “Plain-paper 3D Printer”,
I felt like I had entered a time warp!
The revelation about plain-paper 3D printing came from
well-known investment news-and-opinion source Motley Fool and its article about MCor Technologies
(http://www.mcortechnologies.com), “Meet the 3-D Printer That Disrupts 3DSystems Corporation and Stratasys, Ltd.'s Business Model”.
I was well aware of the “disrupted” companies, 3D and Stratasys, but felt a bit
chagrined that MCor was new to my radar (despite coverage at least a year prior), as was its potentially revolutionary
plain-paper 3-D printing approach. The article describes how the company chose
the source material for its supplies, plain office paper, as a cheap and widely available
material for their products, the output of which is suitable for modeling and prototyping,
using, per the article, “selective deposition lamination, or SDL, [which]
involves a water-based adhesive and a tungsten carbide blade to precisely
adhere and cut paper one sheet at a time to create a 3-D dimensional object
after many repetitions.”
I should have known about plain-paper 3D printing at least a year ago, if I was paying full attention! |
The importance of
Plain Paper in the rise of laser printing
Despite the company and the concept being far from new to the world, the descriptor “plain paper 3D printer” was new to my ears, and got me thinking that if there ever been a confluence of industry buzzwords from different areas this was it. For me, “Plain Paper” printing goes back to the advent of the LaserJet for sure and even a few inkjet printers slightly prior. The HP LaserJet printer, which I worked on beginning in 1986, had been launched in May 1984 (meaning we just missed celebrating its 30th anniversary) – and made its claim to fame based on the three “Q’s”, i.e. it was quick, printing relatively quietly, and with very high print quality. This was brilliant positioning, with product performance that made good on the promises, as it compared this new desktop laser printer to the technologies and products previously available, most common among them the typically noisy and slow dot matrix printers. Beyond the three Q’s though, another secret ingredient to its usability and customer acceptance was the LaserJet's ability to print on plain copier paper, already available in virtually every office. It didn't require the special paper of thermal and other technologies, nor did it require the tractor-feed paper of the dot matrix world, making LaserJet and its follow-ons all the more popular with millions of users.
I learned about this especially well while managing HPs aforementioned
desktop publishing program. The strategic relationships with Aldus and
Microsoft were the cornerstone of our program, with what I thought to be
natural and sensible extensions being alliances with some of the well-known
paper vendors, who offered very high-quality paper appropriate for DTP output.
These plans were shut down, however, by the consensus of slightly more senior
management, who had been in place from the beginning, and enlightened me on
what I had not realized - that anything that implied the LaserJet work better
with one type of "plain paper" than another would start to weaken the
plain paper claim, something like, “when we say we print great with plain
paper, we mean ALL plain paper”.
So will Plain Paper 3D Printing provide the disruption the Motley Fool forsees? None other than Stapleshas initiated an in-store 3D Printing service using MCor machines,
for a prominent example of a B2B early adopter. But as far as mass acceptance,
time will tell. But it’s interesting that what worked with toner-on-plain-paper
a generation ago, may just work with plain-paper-sliced-and-diced in the
current age.
Is 3D Printing
Really Printing? And Comparing it to Commercial Printing
I first learned about 3D
printing about 15 years ago. Then, I quickly realized that despite the fact
that the field’s (Wikipedia offers a good description here) moniker includes “printing” in its popular label (its other more precise label
is “additive manufacturing”), but other than the jetting action of the 3D
“print heads” – a technology were HP really excels, then and now – used in some
of the products, the overall category really had little or nothing to do with
printing, at least as I knew it.
I had seen this parallel
before, also during my time as an HP staffer, when we entered commercial
printing. It now seems very obvious, but in that case too, the thing that was
the most in common with office printing was the word “printing” – though it
involved toner (or ink) and paper, the customers, products, solutions,
channels, etc. were virtually all different than what we were accustomed to
with office printing. Of course, HP took up the challenge, and figured out
“Commercial Printing” in its many variations, via a very systematic process,
even with inevitable fits and starts along the way. This included company and
technology acquisitions, selective hiring of skillful people from commercial
printing backgrounds, and an overall strong commitment, that now over decades
has taken the today’s successes.
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