HP Re-Shapes its Future with 3D Printing and Immersive Computing

HP executive vice president Dion Weisler was on stage for one of his biggest events: the introduction of two new products from HP’s Printing & Personal Systems group (soon to be HP, Inc.). In a live event in New York City that was webcast globally, Weisler and his team introduced two intriguing products designed to help customers unite the physical and digital worlds in a “Blended Reality” supported by HP technologies.

The first products to come out are Multi Jet Fusion, a 3D printer, and Sprout, an immersive computing platform.

Multi Jet Fusion 3D Printer

Steve Nigro, senior vice president of HP’s Inkjet and Graphics businesses, unveiled publicly for the first time HP’s production 3D printer, a product that he said will “trigger the next industrial revolution” through ground-breaking speed, quality, and cost. While being limited on technical details, Nigro stated that HP has taken some of its 2D print assets and applied them in a new way to achieve speeds that are 10 times faster than any other technology on the market today with lower costs than competing products in its class. The product, which looks like a walk-up office copier/printer, will be in beta in 2015 and commercially available sometime in 2016.

The device uses a page-wide print bar with 30,000 nozzles (roughly 12 inches wide by our estimation) that deposits a material coating on the x-axis followed by another bar that deposits a fusing agent on the y-axis. The system applies energy to fuse the materials and agent. The process is repeated again and again to build up the layers of the object on the z-axis. Nigro indicated that the printing process, speed (350 million drops per second), 20-micron drop size, and materials will enable producing products and components with lower costs, more precise shapes, excellent strength, good elasticity, variable textures, and in a wide range of colors.

HP is taking an open platform approach to Multi Jet Fusion allowing other materials and applications developers to work with HP to innovate on the platform and facilitate the product development. HP had Shapeways CEO Peter Weijmarshausen on stage to talk about how the HP product would be received by its 3D printing community and marketplace.

Sprout

Ron Coughlin, senior vice president and general manager of HP’s Consumer Personal Systems business unit, introduced Sprout which combines two touch screens, a scanner, a depth sensor, a high-resolution camera and a projector with a collaboration platform that allows users in multiple locations to collaborate on and manipulate digital content in real-time. HP describes this as the first immersive computing platform that merges the 2D and 3D worlds.

HP also announced an application marketplace for Sprout with applications optimized to take advantage of its immersive computing platform. In addition to HP’s own applications, this includes Windows-based applications designed for the dual-screen environment including Martha Stewart CraftStudio, DreamWorks Animation Story Producer, Crayola’s Draw & Sing, and GestureWorks Gameplay. Sprout will be available in 50 stores starting November 9 in what HP describes as a ‘curated’ (rather than a boxed) experience. Sprout has a starting price of $1,899.

HP positioned Sprout as a creativity and collaboration tool. They highlighted examples from Martha Stewart, graphic designers, and photographers/artists. They showed compelling videos of consumers creating scrapbooks and business partners collaborating on designs. Sprout is very unique in terms of the UI/UX, access to resources, and interactive/collaborative experience. We believe it has the potential to establish an entirely new category, but will likely need significant market development efforts to go mainstream beyond the design community.

Significance

Whenever HP makes a major announcement about its printing strategy and products the market needs to take careful notice. HP has a long history of innovative products, business models, and domination of print-related markets. Clearly, 3D is a new dimension, but because of HP’s size, technology, and focus, there is no reason to believe HP, Inc. will not be a significant player in the 3D printer market. The same holds true for Sprout where HP, Inc. is well positioned to connect the 2D and 3D worlds through personal computing technology, cloud services, and a unique user interface.

Aside from the product news, this event was an important milestone for Dion Weisler in positioning him as the leader of one of the two Fortune 50 companies that will come out of the split of HP in 2015. He handled the moment well, and was supported by one of the most effective multi-media kick-off events in recent memory. This event did much to emphasize HP’s “Invent” and R&D/engineering heritage while pointing out future possibilities in 3D printing and immersive computing.

We believe these products are symbolic of the new HP, Inc. and demonstrate that splitting HP into two new independent businesses allows each to highlight its own strengths. These products are very significant for “tomorrow’s” HP, Inc. but may have been a secondary announcement at “today’s” Hewlett-Packard Company.

HP’s vision is compelling and these products are intriguing. When we look back at today’s announcements, we will likely see it as the first day of HP, Inc.