The Kinko's example actually demonstrates my point pretty well. Kinko's
(and other chains like Mailboxes etc.) are displacing the mom-and-pop
shops. So even though there are many storefronts, there are few actual
corporations.
The granularity of the overall business will differ from the copy centers
(fewer, larger firms) as long as there is a higher requirement for
capital and skilled personnel to run the machines. Your typical minimum
wage employee could never run an SLA, but can be quite competent with a
copier. In addition, customers for RP services are different, and are
more likely to be comfortable with the "You email me a file - I'll FedEx
you a part" style of the fabricator shops. This lends itself to
centralization to save cost on facilities.
The main point I was trying to get across is that there is nothing
romantically different about the RP service business. The same market
forces that cause contractions and consolidations in other industries
will occur here. Those who insist that their industry is special, and
immune from these effects, will be dissapointed.
Bruce Christie
(909) 948-6854
(909) 980-6879 (fax - please call first)
For more information about the rp-ml, see http://ltk.hut.fi/rp-ml/
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