<Soapbox>
I think I was talking about company survival. If pentax becomes a
Me-Too company, who's offerings are no better than last years Canon then
they will have no reason to survive, and they won't. All that's kept
them afloat as an SLR manufacture since the glory days of the M series
has been the fact that they were different, they cared about the past
while building a bridge to the future. The _lenses_ were what mattered,
(if the bodies mattered there would be have been no Pentax after the
demise of the MX, and Super Program. The A series (except for the Super
Program) and P series bodies were singularly uninspiring, especially
when compared to the well built cameras of the past. The SF and P
series were large a clunky, the only thing any of these cameras had
going for them was that they mounted Pentax glass, (apologys to all the
PZ/Z1-p lovers out there, but it was feature wise out classed by
everyone else, when features began to matter more than performance).
Even the MZ/ZX bodies which started a small Pentax renaissance were very
lightly built and not particularly rugged. Nice cameras good handling
"good enough" viewfinders but once again only the glass made them really
worth having. (They were appealing however you can see how much because
Canon and Minolta brought out small light SLRs to compete with them).
Pentax had better not abandon what made them special, (and they trumpet
their backward compatibility so they know the score). If they use it
simply as a marketing claim, and don't deliver, then they will be gone,
because rather than turning around the bleeding will accelerate.
</soapbox>
Herb Chong wrote:
company survival trumps promises. the imaging products division
continues to lose money and only the most optimistic forecasts say
that it will make money in 2007. breakeven in 2006 is possible with
some luck. because of Pentax's bottom feeder strategy for DSLRs, the
only part of the imaging products division making money, even tiny
additional parts or assembly costs have to be shaved. if you think
competition in the camera industry is bad now, wait until next year.
i see Pentax working as hard to be as compatible as they can afford to
and no harder. i fully expect that the next higher end digital body
will also be without aperture lever and will have no more
compatibility than any existing digital body. in the next couple of
years, there will be fewer and fewer new Pentax lenses with aperture
rings because there will be no production body that needs them. the
people that matter to Pentax are the ones that buy new Pentax
equipment now.
Herb....
----- Original Message ----- From: "P. J. Alling"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, September 18, 2005 9:04 PM
Subject: Re: Pentax K 2.5/200mm
Pentax made a promise. If they don't keep it, then what assurance do
you have that anything they promise, either implicitly or expressly,
will be honored? The answer is none. JCO is right. At which point
there is no longer any reason for brand loyalty to Pentax. It's a
short sighted business decision, indicative of HBS MBA thinking.
This kind of thing kills companies, eventually we will all go to
Canon. If we can't have continuity then at least we can have the
latest technology.
--
When you're worried or in doubt,
Run in circles, (scream and shout).
