Cotty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >It's official: > ><http://www.dpreview.com/news/0601/06011901konicaminoltaout.asp>
Not surprising, IMHO. They were too late to the DSLR market (way behind Pentax, even!) And I think they hurt themselves by diluting the Minolta name when they merged with Konica. There's no reason why they couldn't have marketed cameras and photographic equipment under the name "Minolta" even after the merger, if they'd wanted to. I also suspect they didn't weather the "total lens mount revision" of the 80's as well as Canon did - not having Canon's clout and user base, after all. (And who came up with that stupid proprietary flash shoe thing, anyway?) A lot of little things adding up. Now their product line will continue under the Sony brand, apparently, but they'll be competing with the Samsung-branded-Pentax products, for the most part. The "Serious Photography" pie is now a three-way split between Nikon, Canon and Pentax. Of course, the difference between the two is becoming increasingly blurred... -- Mark Roberts Photography and writing www.robertstech.com
