After a decade and a half of producing 3D Systems’ line of ProJet 3D printers, Xerox Corporation will be selling a portion of its Wilsonville, Oregon R&D division to the 3D printing industry leader for $32.5 million in cash. The purchase is thought to benefit both companies, with 3D Systems gaining more than 100 Xerox engineers and contractors focused on product design and materials science and Xerox controlling the development of ink and printhead technology, in addition to other research.
Through developing its own research and development with the newly acquired Xerox team, 3D Systems will increase its R&D spending between 75% and 100% over the course of the next few years.
Xerox currently has about 1,000 employees at the Wilsonville location. The Wilsonville campus was purchased from Tektronix by Xerox in 2000. Xerox, as the sole supplier of solid ink printing process, invented by Tektronix in 1986, asserts that its technology produces higher color print quality and is less wasteful than color laser jet printing. If that proposed color quality carries over to 3D Systems’ full-color 3D printing, like the recently released ProJet 4500, the industry leader will greatly benefit from the acquisition.
