You may have heard about Ultimaker’s new personal 3D printer, the not-so-surprisingly named Ultimaker 2, but that’s not all that’s going down at the Dutch manufacturer.
We listened to a talk by their new CEO, Henk van Gils at the London 3D Printshow 2013, in which he revealed some corporate moves at the growing company. It seems that Ultimaker is making a transition from small startup to be positioned for large growth. van Gils says they are “evolving to mass market machinery from DIY – it’s a new world.”
But what specifically have they done? Here’s our list:
- They’ve hired a dedicated CEO. Like many startup companies, the beginning requires those with technical skills to make the first products, but as the company grows, you need real CEO skills. van Gils is they guy they’ve hired (last July) to take on that role
- They’ve split the company in two. One side, UltiLabs, retains the original chaotic style that resulted in the development of the first Ultimaker. It will provide the R&D for the organization. The other side, simply Ultimaker, focuses on production and delivery of product in a traditional organized manufacturing operation
- They’ve reworked their corporate org chart to accommodate these moves (see spy image above)
Are these moves a good thing? We think so. The company retains its startup mojo by isolating the R&D, yet should be able to provide excellent product service and delivery at the same time.
Can we have an Ultimaker 3 now?
Via Ultimaker
From an Ultimaker owner's perspective, this is great news.
In my personal dealings with them about 10 months ago, there always seemed to be a level of chaos and unreliability in their customer support practices. It seemed like every employee was performing multiple functions that stretched them so thin that it took multiple contacts to get any useful assistance. It felt like the company was a handful of engineer buddies with no business experience trying to run a company that was growing too fast for them to keep up. I ended up relying primarily on other users for help. Once I got all of the problems ironed out, the printer is actually quite excellent. In my opinion, hiring professionals to run the business side will allow the engineers to focus on what they do best. It's a win for everyone. The future looks bright for Ultimaker.
I vote for an Ultimaker 3, too. Actually, it could be an Ultimaker 2 Pro. It should have everything the U2 has, plus a larger build volume and dual extruders. While I'm wishing, I also wish they had a manufacturing & distribution location in the U.S. The extra costs of dealing with a Netherlands company make the Ultimaker a very pricey printer for U.S. customers.