I am usually a lurker on the list, but reading all the posts from everyone here on Pentax digital, I find that most people have their facts misplaced.
First of all, the market isn't going full digital yet and it may not be for many years. The fact is, people still want good old fashioned "prints". The really interesting part is that, we may all think that men command the photographic market, while in fact, almost more than 46% of photo consumers are women! They spend the money and they still spent it on good old fashioned film.
Some may argue that film sales has declined over the past few years and this may signalled the end of analog photography. This is hardly from the truth as if you look at the recent photo industry's sales survey, film is starting to make a come back again. It seems that when digital came into the market, everyone was fascinated by the opportunity for anyone to do their own photo finishing at home with their computer. This is indicative of the good old B&W darkroom days of some 30-50 years ago. But eventually, people are going back to their photo finisher for digital print processing, just like how the majority of us gave up B&W and color printing and let the finisher do the job. Last but not least, no digital camera today that is affordable to the common person is any superior than a 35mm negative.
Now, to digital sales.. I guess, most of you have read Pal's comment on digital sales and unfortunately, he *IS* telling the truth. The only people who are making money on digital are probably the photo stores. And why is that? That is because, the 35mm market is for now totally saturated. There isn't any growth in the 35mm market anymore. North American families typically have 1-2 cameras in their household and that usually compromise of a point & shoot and or a dated SLR system. And like a computer, the 35mm system has become commodotized. Most stores usually make most of their money not on cameras, but on accessories they sell because margins are a little better there. On the other hand, the digital market still has room to grow, because not every household has it.
Now, what does it all have to do with Pentax?
I think Pentax knows this. From the mid 80s to the late 90s, as Pal had indicated on his previous post, Pentax was a strong zoom compact maker and still is. While Pentax designed most of their compacts in house, other makers farm out their compacts to someone else. There is also a little known fact, but Pentax also has the expertise to design and manufacture their own lens shutter for zoom compacts, something other makers do not. There are also many first technologies employed by Pentax in their zoom compacts that received little recognition. Suffice to say, they are king in their business and still is. On the SLR front, Pentax sells the MZ series very well, though probably not as well as they liked these days. But keep in mind that Pentax is targetting a different market than Nikon and Canon and that market is very well received.
But when it comes to digital or any other innovations however, Pentax does fare well against its competitors. They just don't want to bleed money profusely like their competitors do, and that's why they're a little slow in putting things out. That should also explain why they don't put out many of their secret weapons. And besides, being first in any digital innovation does not always "ENSURE" you to be the leader of that field in the future.
And that reminds me of a little history about personal computers. During the early 70s to the mid 90s, the personal computer industry suffered from the same fate as the digital market we are experiencing today. There were so many computer makers, so many innovations, too many to list. Ti, Tandy, Commodore, Atari, Sinclair and the list goes on and on. I also remembered how people immediately wrote obituaries of both Apple and the PC when the Commodore Amiga and the Atari ST computers were kings of their day. Today, Apple G4s and Pentium 4 PCs are kings, the very platform that people in those days said would not survive. All I am saying is that, do not write off Pentax so easily, because I believe that when all this nonsense subside, you'll see only a few handful of digital makers survive. And Pentax will be one of them.
That's my 2 cents worth.
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