One of 3D printing’s most venerable brands is set to disappear! Bits From Bytes, a.k.a. BFB, will no longer exist as a brand. According to their Facebook post:
On April 1, 2013 we will be discontinuing the 3D Touch and Rapman and integrating our website and social channels with 3D Systems. Both printers will continue to be fully supported with more information to come. Please join us on our 3D Systems social channels and 3D Systems consumer community, Cubify. On Cubify you’ll be able to share in the marketplace, play with new apps and design tools, turn your models into apps, and monetize a 3D business.
This was totally expected after BFB’s acquisition by 3D Systems some years ago, and especially after seeing the successor to BFB’s flagship product, the 3D Touch, being branded as the CubeX.
The 3D Touch is replaced by the CubeX and the Rapman is replaced by the little Cube.
Well done, BFB. We’ll miss you!
Via Facebook
Thanks, Jack, I'd overlooked that!
I'd incorrectly thought they'd retired the VisiJet brand because the old monikers like VisiJet SR 200 and VisiJet LD 100 had disappeared from suppliers' catalogs. (Replacement materials are still sold, just not under these brand designations.)
But the new branding is a grand improvement because the names fit the intended use: VisiJetĀ® Clear for transparency, VisiJetĀ® Jewel for jewelry castings, etc.
The Visijet brand is alive and well at 3D Systems, its the materials line for the Projet series.
Brand names are expensive to create and dispose of. 3D Systems has a habit of creating and disposing of brand names too frivilously.
Invision and VisiJet brands were dumped, and the corresponding products rebranded ProJet. The new name didn't add any value, and didn't carry forward any of the goodwill and equity the old brands had built up.
The V-Flash brand was dumped and that particular technology was repositioned under the ProJet brand–where it didn't really fit technologically or demographically. (3D Systems didn't retain ownership of the V-Flash's web domain, so old links don't even get forwarded to 3D Systems!)
By contrast, Stratasys has been careful to maintain branding continuity for its venerable Dimension and Fortus brands, only creating new brands for new products that fit new niches…and they've been maintaining those new brands too. Prior to their merger, Objet had been similarly protective of their Eden and Connex brands.
No doubt 3D Systems thinks they're unifying their brands by grouping them under the "ProJet" or "Cube" umbrella names, but their choices feel haphazard.