Not impressed with new SawStop ICS

[Brian Nguyen]

Paint all the saws green, and mark up another 25%?

I'm curious what Festo is going to do with Sawstop.

[Simon MacGowen]

I couldn't remember which company had acquired Sawstop but since it's Festool and they are not the kind of company that tries to compete at the commodity level I would not be surprised if the patents SawStop holds are renewed.

On another forum, someone shared that the Festool US is expanding its US manufacturing compound (something like 100% bigger?), but that does not include any provisions for SawStop, It was also shared that before the parent company of Festool bought SawStop, at a Festool event in the EU open to selected vendors that in addition to Festool machines (including a tablesaw), the SawStop was also demonstrated. Attendees at that time were not sure why SawStop was there.

As of today, Festool's parent company is still keeping SawStop as a separate operation with its own management team. What's cooking behind is anyone's guess.

Simon