SLM Solutions is a well-known manufacturer of metal 3D printing equipment, but we can’t tell you anything about them.
The reason? They won’t talk with us.
Here’s the background: currently our team is attending the FormNext exhibition where we’re talking directly to a large number of 3D print vendors large and small, finding out details and explanations of equipment, materials, strategies, tips and much more. This information will appear in our pages for weeks to come, providing all readers with deeper perspectives and greater understanding of the 3D print industry as a whole. We are eternally grateful to all the professional vendors who spent considerable time this week to spend their valuable time to talk with us about their plans, strategies and equipment.
But SLM Solutions is not one of them.
After waiting for some time at their rather elaborate stand at the show, we were presented with a marketing person who insisted they could only provide us with their printed paper press release.
We explained that we had traveled literally THOUSANDS OF KILOMETERS to the show in order to actually speak with a real person about their business, whereas a press release is available anywhere, anytime.
We were told we could only speak with the person who wrote the press release.
We were then told that person is not present and there was no one we could speak with, in spite of the at least one dozen SLM staff visibly present at the time.
This publication is not in the practice of simply re-publishing press releases. That may be the role of other publications, but we don’t do that. We read press releases to determine if there is something of note for the 3D print community and then publish our thoughts and opinion on the matter. If it’s not noteworthy in our opinion, we don’t publish anything on the topic.
Back to SLM Solutions. We are not interested in a press release – on printed paper – we could have just as easily read anywhere. Our purpose in attending events is to find out things that are not in press releases, or delve deeper into the meaning of announcements. We want to understand what’s going on so we can tell you, the reader, what’s actually happening and why.
So, what is happening at SLM Solutions?
We have no idea.
