3ders is reporting on the announcement by Autodesk that it intends to invest $100 Million in 3D printing companies through the Spark Investment Fund.
The Spark is Autodesk's open 3D printing platform, which is used as the basis for the Autodesk Ember product.
The objective of the Spark Fund is to:
...invest in entrepreneurs, startups and researchers to push the boundaries of 3D printing technology and accelerate the new industrial revolution.
The announcement is available at the spark blog, and there's some comments on the motivation behind this over at Pando Daily.
By giving it away they get a lot back. If Autodesk can make Spark the Android of 3D printing, an allusion CEO Carl Bass has made in the past, the company can remain well placed to retain an 85 percent market share for its AutoCAD software, which doesn’t go cheap.
Also covered at Techcrunch, PE Hub and 3D Print amongst others.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday November 01 2014, @06:11AM
3D printed crickets, no doubt, but still, crickets. Why is this topic so not interesting? Oh, Autodesk!
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Saturday November 01 2014, @10:34AM
Heh. Looks like there's some degree of 3dprinting fatigue, given the response to the last couple of articles I've submitted on the topic. Which is a shame - I thought this was a case of an old heavyweight putting a serious push behind an open source platform in new tech, which is the kind of thing I thought was interesting.
Then again, if I wanted "many" comments then I'd probably be submitting "systemd developers opinions on gamergate" or similar... Actually now I think about that... :)