Prior to GE acquisition of Arcam, I always wondered about what was up with DTI. Here you have a part of Arcam that was better positioned than most companies to benefit from EBM and yet they could not grow. DTI should have been the tip of the spear to move the needle for EBM adoption. When DTI failed to grow, Arcam's management blamed the decline on other more traditional technologies employed by DTI as to the reason for lack of growth.
What? Pretty lame.
The lack of growth and the excuses we heard from Arcam management regarding DTI caused me to tend to believe that Arcam was a technology company. And, that Arcam did not have in house marketing/sales leadership and skills commensurate with their technology advantages.
That all said, I am going to say that despite the obvious potential synergies between GE, Arcam, DTI and EBM generally, I would NOT be surprised if they sold DTI. Here are my reasons.
1) Given GE's financial position they have to be real careful as to where they allocate capital/resources. Investments in DTI could detract from investments in GE's other digital manufacturing initiatives.
2) DTI seems small. For DTI to make a significant impact on GE's bottom line, I would think they would need to grow DTI alot .. again ... potentially diverting available resources away from other digital/3D initiatives. I don't think GE can be half in half out if they are going to be serious about DTI.
3) I think there is a trade off between GE being a supplier of technology to other companies so other companies can print things vs. GE printing things themselves as a supplier to the end market.
GE might be risking relationships with other 3D manufacturers if the other manufacturers see them as the competition. There is a lot of downside if other companies start to think this way.
And remember, there is probably already some significant awareness/concern on the part of companies that make end user products via 3D printers .. with the fact that GE already controls a lot of the choke points (printer technologies, printer production, titanium powder .. not to mention that they know that GE has the ability to throw a lot of cash/resources at whatever market they might want to take over.
In short, I think GE will divest itself of DTI. The benefits of building out DTI as an outsourcer might be limited and expensive - while the risks of stepping on toes could be comparatively high 1. unwillingness of other 3D end-product manufactures to collaborate with GE because they see them as competition 2. risk of loosing printer and powder sales to GE's competitors because they don't want to fund GE growth. Think Pyrogenesis.
Alternatively GE my use DTI as a center of excellence type of resource to support research generally. However, it seems like GE has centers of excellence type facilities popping up ever day.
I will stop my ramblings. Again, all conjecture here for the sake of keeping the conversation going. I don't have any more info on these points than any other member of this board.... all 5 of us.
ps. The press release was bit confusing to me in that i recall it saying 1) one option is to divest DTI and 2) "Arcam’s objective is to strengthen DTI’s ability to serve as a contract manufacturing partner to orthopedic customers seeking to combine."
Seems like if one option is to divest DTI, then from GE/Arcam standpoint it would not really matter what happens to DTI after divesting. Maybe there is another objective with this that is not being clearly stated.
