The Future of CEREC
CEREC 25 is a distant memory, but I think its so critical to remember and keep in mind the lecture by Ingo Zimmer -- head of the Sirona software development team. Ingo's lecture was great -- I'm very proud to call him a good friend, and I was happy to see him on the main stage giving a keynote lecture. More importantly, I sat with great concentration listening to him as he talked about the future of CEREC. What caught my attention most was when he talked about multiple units -- being able to design up to 32 units at a time, on either arch, upper, lower, different quadrants, any design technique that you want. That will be, for a lack of better word -- HUGE! With the way biogenerics has performed for single teeth, imagine being able to do a biogeneric arch. Just prep your teeth and get your proposals. Just freaking sweet. Well, that leads me to this thought: will the CAD/CAM revolution end at that point? Honestly, with the ability to do a full mouth rehab with a single click of the button, what else is there for Sirona to do? Will that mean that at that point CAD/ CAM finally just becomes another tool? Another device that is like an X-ray or the handpiece? That little incremental gains in technology are more evolutionary instead of revolutionary? Think about it. With the BlueCam, imaging is super easy. Just a bit of powder, and image away. Now, with the ability to do multiples, how many new CEREC owners will be out there in the next five years? 5,000? 10,000? More? All I know is that this Web site is going to get super busy, and the faculty better be ready with their game faces to help all the new owners out there with all their clinical and software questions.