After my Makerbot vs Cubify side-by-side I was really excited to see the actual throw down. This is actually a few month’s old but who cares, it’s new to me.
Kathy: “Coloring book simplicity.” “In the cloud.” “Coloring book.” “Cloud.”
Bre: “We share everything.” “We made this for everyone”
0:35 Oh, who won? That’s right, Makerbot. Put your plastic mail glove away.
1:25 That plastic mail glove isn’t even makable on the machine she’s selling. So what is it doing at that table?
1:30 3D systems have printers in the cloud? Either I have a fundamental misunderstanding of what “cloud” means… or she does.
3:20 I didn’t have to build my Makerbot. I’m not that technical and I’m in this thanks to Makerbot. This womans rhetoric is really starting to get on my… CLOUD! That is seriously jarring.
4:50 “We share everything.” “Make it yours.” “This is really cool” -Bre
5:41 “They’re not going to actually want to… design.” -Kathy. But then she goes on to talk about all the tools 3D Systems is buying up to help people design. So which is it? Do people want to design or don’t they?
7:20 *BAM* Here’s what Makerbot will sell you. 2.2 pounds of raw plastic for $42. Why don’t you mention how much you’re charging for raw material Cubify? Then Bre flexes a bit over how much bigger their big platform is. Be careful, Bre. I’m pretty sure 3D systems has something in their arsenal even bigger.
8:00 Ray says that he wants to design and Kathy’s response is more or less “No, you don’t.” The exact quote was “We believe that the average consumer doesn’t want to learn CAD.” Now maybe that’s what she meant to say before but that’s exactly the opposite of what he was asking. She’s so busy dropping buzzwords she fallen behind on the relevant answers.
8:42 Bre’s getting as tired of her buzzwords as I am. Endearment ++. He offers up Sketch Up as a great place to start designing.
9:00 Oh, it’s heating up now. She’s trying to pigeon hole Makerbot as the company they were a year ago, for tech heads. Bre’s response is brilliant “We made this for everyone.”
Time for an aside. I’ve stated before that makerbot isn’t for everyone. Not yet. The software is still hard to use and the hardware is still a little fiddly. It’s better than it ever has been and leaps and bounds better than RepRap. But Cubify looks pretty good… on paper. So far I haven’t seen a lot of people, actual consumers, talking about how easy Cubify is. All their ease of use is still [puts on sunglasses] in the cloud. [Yeeeeeaaaaah!]
Back to the commentary.
10:45 I can’t tell if Kathy’s response is sincere, as in she sees this as a chance to grab development for free, or sarcastic, as in she doesn’t think being open source would work. So either she’s a jerk or a fool.
12:00 Ray is right. $300 is the magic number. And neither of them have the answer as to when it will happen.
13:30 Bre getting jabby at her buzzwords again. Less endearing this time.
13:45 Then Bre redeems himself. This is going to go down as Bre’s Soliloquy in this thing. He’s not just an advocate of Makerbot. He’s an advocate of the technology, of empowerment, and of the cool.
Obviously Bre’s laid back, easy going, share everything attitude appeals to me more than Kathy’s repeated buzz words sales pitch. I love that Bre is all about making cool stuff. Kathy, on the other hand, is all about selling. In that I think they both represented their companies perfectly.
Once again Makerbot established themselves as the good guys in this field. Let’s just hope it’s not a case of good guys finishing last.
