The entire 3D printing market has been holding their collective breath waiting to see in what capacity the $60 billion tech Goliath, Hewlett-Package, would enter the industry. There has been much speculation on if and when HP will begin selling 3D printers to consumers, as well as manufacturers, since CEO Meg Whitman made remarks several months back revealing that they will enter the market sometime in 2014.

Today, Meg Whitman threw the industry another bone, stating that the company will outline their plans, sometime in June, related to 3D printing. She told shareholders today that the company will reveal a “big technology announcement” in June related to how they will approach things within the 3D Printing market. She also made it clear that she feels that the company has tackled some of the key issues holding the market back from mass adoption.

It appears that HP is more excited about the manufacturing market , than the consumer market of printers.

“We actually think we’ve solved these problems,” Whitman told an annual shareholders meeting. “The bigger market is going to be in the enterprise space,” manufacturing parts and prototypes in ways that were not possible before.

Hewlett-Packard’s re-entrance into the selling of 3d printers will certainly worry the smaller corporations like 3D Systems and Stratasys, who rely on both consumer oriented, and manufacturing oriented printer sales for the bulk of their revenue.

“HP is currently exploring the many possibilities of 3D printing and the company will play an important role in its development,” CTO and HP Labs director Martin Fink said in a February blogpost on HP’s website.

The exact date in June was not provided. Discuss HP’s 3D printing aspirations at 3D Print Board.

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