Pal wrote:
Therews no reason to smell merging just because of joint development. Pentax is mostly behind HP digital cameras as well and God knows how much of other manufacturers P&S.Yes. The story of Casio and Pentax merging is just my guess only.
But nothing impossible, as who can guess beforehand that Konica would accquire Minolta? Their starting light of merging can be traced back to 2000 when the two companies started joint development of some successful products in office equipment.
From expertise point of view, Casio appears to compliment well with Pentax.One is an experienced manufacturer for consumer electronics product but they know nothing about optical design. Pentax has declared their intention on shifting their camera line to digital which they don't have a strong R&D basis in electronics. Pentax must have obtained some backing and support in electronics before making such a bold statement.
The EXILIM digital camera series of Casio is a big hit in Japan which outsell Sony's Cybershot U series, and people are just realizing that this is a joint effort between Casio and Pentax. Besides Casio, any large electronic giants in Japan who want to put a foothold in camera industry might also be interested in investing on Pentax, a relatively small company with strong optical development and production capability. Afterall, digital camera market is the fastest growing sector in consumer electronics. For instance, Sanyo has very strong ties with Pentax. They have just jointly set up a company for business digital cameras. The electronics inside Optio 230/330GS come from Sanyo.
Regards,
Henry Chu
10/1/2003
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