MakerBot and Ultimaker agree to merge

[SandervG 1,521]

What a news that hit the newsstands today! 😮

"MakerBot and Ultimaker agree to merge to accelerate global adoption of additive manufacturing", so reads the title on our press page. Ultimaker investor NPM owning 54.4% and Stratasys 45.6% of the new entity. The merger between Ultimaker and Makerbot will continue under the Ultimaker brand. More details will be shared in the upcoming days, weeks and months. 

 

I'm curious to hear your thoughts. Questions and comments you can leave below and we'll do our best to answer and at the very least respond! The most solid information we have available for the moment is shared via our press release, you can read it here. Take care! 

[neute 16]

Hi,

 

these news were certainly unexpected. And completely unthinkable some years back, as Joris Peels put it.

It will be interesting to see how this moves forward. 

IMO Ultimaker is in a very interesting position, or was before yesterday, as they have arguably the best or most comprehensive software offering that enables digital workflows on an industry level. Add to this the propably most extensive material portfolio (as it represents a big chunk of the materials market). In contrast to this, the UMS5 leaves quite a bit to be desired, especially compared to more recent offerings in the same ballpark.

If taking on Makerbot also means the adoption of IP, developers and a bunch of cash in the process, it will hopefully mean a new, competitive hardware lineup in the not too distant future!

[SandervG 1,521]

Hi @neute, thank you for your comment. Only a very small handful of people knew about this merger being in the air so it was a surprise for a lot of people. Some say they saw it coming, but I can tell you.. I wasn't one of them 😛 

And I agree, completely unthinkable several years ago. I imagine you can look at it from different angles, people are not out of place being sceptical but I think it is important to remember that at Ultimaker we have also gone through the growth and investment cycles and have always been able to safeguard our principles and values. And I like to think we will do again now. Proof being that NPM owns 56% of the shares. 

 

But.. we're not perfect, and MBI is no villain. It is a company with passionate engineers just like us. Without a doubt we can learn from each other and no one would have started this journey if we didn't believe we would make it out stronger on the other end. 

[ahoeben 1,948]

Ultibot does not know what to make of his new outfit yet...

 

Edited May 13, 2022 by ahoeben

[GregValiant 1,245]

But it is wearing a Tee Shirt with a big "M" on it.  Did it know ahead of time???  Possible insider trading going on???  Or maybe it was having an affair with a cute Makerbot???

[ReynoldsBeta 0]

Anything at all that can make the MakerBot software more standards-centric (and open source) will be an astounding success. I [briefly] owned a MakerBot Method X Carbon Fiber and spend two weeks trying to get it to print reliability. I ended up returning it and getting an Ultimaker S5 and haven't looked back. To be fair, there was a lot of tech goodness going for the Method X, but at the end of the day it was poor [proprietary] slicing software and terrible support that made me send it back within the 30-day return window. I'm willing to bet if CURA had been usable on the Method X I would still have that device today.

 

I just hope this merger doesn't degrade all the good I've seen with Ultimaker hardware and CURA software so far or obsolete this still newish S5.

 

[Jaka3d 1]

Is there any information, if or when we could expect Ultimaker Cura to support Makerbot Method printers?

MakerBot Cloud slicer has some nice features but it can't compare to Cura.

[Drliao 6]

Wow, I have both a Makerbot Replicator+ and an Ultimaker S5, both providing me with outstanding performance and brilliant prints! Looking forward to receiving this new software update as I have found both softwares very reliable and efficient!