RE: Thoughts and comments on the Plynetics Auction (Schaumburg location)

From: Karl Denton (karldenton@ameritech.net)
Date: Tue Mar 23 1999 - 02:07:05 EET


Arnold,

I'm not sure that I believe that the market will bottom out! Companies
close every day and yet other industries seem to still be growing. I have
conducted surveys for the RP industry for several years now and have never
based any prediction, market growth comment on the service bureau business.
This in my mind is risky at best. Service bureau's can and do go out of
business for several reasons and in the case of Pylnetics it was very poor
money management, not attributed to sales of RP parts or services. When
Pylnetics Express shut down there was a massive insurgence of part build
requests to the rest of the RP SB community and indeed it sparked several
NEW purchases of equipment. The fact that the machines that were going out
at auction will typically not hurt new sales and in fact may help push
others to new machines (case in point is the client that I went to the
auction to represent).

You must remember that this is a small industry and every time there is a
burp in anybody's business others and indeed the whole industry hears and
reacts to it. Even if Compression is forced to down size or close this in
my opinion would not cause sales of new RP equipment to stop or slow down.
There are several hundred if not thousands of companies that have never
heard of Pylnetics, Compression and in some cases even RP that will be
potential new users of this technology. I might suggest (at the risk of
starting a whole new batch of emails from various individuals) state that
earlier growth predictions and forecasts may have been a bit too aggressive
in being based on the SB industry. I might add that the SB's in my area are
doing well, producing and growing and at a manageable rate, and that they
all have figured out what they were best at and have managed to use that to
their advantage.

As for the price tag that 3D has decided to put on their equipment I can
only say that I think this will hurt in the long run. They have always been
the highest priced and in some cases the most arrogant about it. This may
change over time and I hope that it does. I have used their equipment for
some time and do believe that they have very sound an reliable equipment but
others are catching up and should not be over looked by 3D. Instead of
seeing an industry wide slow down I think that we will see customer loyalty
change from manufacturer to manufacturer based on these things. This will
provide some with the opportunity to expand and then provide others with a
wake-up call.

I hope this answers your question...

Karl R. Denton
Advanced Technology Consultants LLC
4778 Greenview Ct.
Commerce Twp., MI 48382
Email: karldenton@ameritech.net
Phone: 248-363-1478
Cell: 248-789-6410
Pager: 248-523-3318
Fax: 248-363-7488

Helping you excel through the use of Advanced Technologies
____________________________________________________________

-----Original Message-----
From: B. J. Arnold-Feret [mailto:ppsltd@airmail.net]
Sent: Sunday, March 21, 1999 11:40 PM
To: Karl Denton
Subject: RE: Thoughts and comments on the Plynetics Auction (Schaumburg
location)

Now, having got all that other stuff out of the way-

What, in your opinion, is going to be the bottoming out of the market on RP
equipment from a timing and pricing level? Let's assume (always dangerous)
;) that Compression does go down the tubes and their equipment becomes
available within the next year.

Used DTM machines continue to sell cheaper than I expect. Used SLA 250
machines are easily obtained right now.

It is pretty interesting that 3D is selling the new machine at quite a
ticket price, and used equipment continues to drop in pricing. I personally
thought the market would bottom out in around summer of 2000. However, with
several firms gone in a shorter time that I predicted, I wonder if the
timeframe should be moved up. I know that we'll hear from Terry about the
future at the RP & M, but I am very interested in other perspectives.

B. J. Arnold-Feret
ppsltd@airmail.net

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