[jeryst]

Recently, I made a post about the Ricoh and Pentax merger, and I compared it to a Ricoh buyout of Minolta.
I meant to compare it to the Konica buyout of Minolta, however I was thinking about Ricoh, and inadvertantly
said that Ricoh bought out Minolta.

I apologize for that mistake. Guess it was just too little sleep, or maybe old age is creeping up with me.

Anyway, I was disappointed with the Konical-Minolta deal, because the great Minolta cameras ceased to exist, and
I fear that the same thing will happen with Ricoh and Pentax. The buying company usually has three motives for
acquiring a competitor: (1. Put the competitor out of business, (2. Gain access to the competitors market, (3. Gain
access to the competitors technology. Very seldom does the purchased company see any benefit from the deal, because
the buying company needs to eliminate people to avoid duplication of duties, reduce costs, etc. The people that wind up being
let go, are usually people from the purchased company, so the entire culture takes on the attributes of they buying company.

How it will play out, no one knows for sure, except Ricoh executives. Only time will tell, but I still fear the worst.

And once again, sorry for the mistake.

[RioRico]

I'm in no position to accept nor reject any apology, so I won't dwell there. I'll suggest that you omitted a 4th corporate motivation: To add to their product line.

You seem to think of Ricoh and Pentax as rivals, pre-buyout. Rivals do indeed gut rivals in nasty fights, but that just doesn't look like the Ricoh-Pentax situation. Ricoh and Pentax weren't competitors. Their products were aimed at quite different markets, except for a tiny sliver of the shrinking P&S arena. In the last few decades, Ricoh has primarily been an office-machine firm, growing via acquisitions of other office-product makers, and by out-competing Canon in that realm. I see the Pentax purchase as being aimed at out-competing Canon in the photo arena. Gutting Pentax wouldn't help that goal. Do you know if Ricoh has a history of gutting its acquisitions? If so, please tell us.

I'm no student of corporate politics. I'd expect that where there's overlap between Ricoh and Pentax jobs, there will be firings and retirements. I'd expect that'll mostly be in marketing, where Pentax hasn't exactly been a whiz. Maybe Ricoh will do something else; I don't know. Ricoh says they want Pentax to be a major player in cameras; I see no reason to doubt that; so design and production should see hirings, not firings. But we'll just have to wait and see, won't we.

[rhodopsin]

Maybe they will cut a path in the K mount for the Ricoh pin.

[Wheatfield]

As Rico mentioned, you forgot a forth option. Rather than having your shorts all knotted up in hysteria, you should be looking at things from a more realistic perspective.

[daacon]

Expect the best - prepare for the worst. There is little 'we' control in this merger / buy out. Any influcene we have we have already done in spades (buying Pentax). So keep the glass half full until someone tips it over.

[Lowell Goudge]

I would agree with Rio here. I see this as getting back into a sector they exited from years ago. At one time, I worried with pentax licensing the K mount to cosina, Ricky, sigma, vi Iyar and others whether pentax was possibly retracting back into a lens maker only. Since those companies exited the SLR market(except Sigma) pentax has captured that portion of market share. I see Ricoh as offering a mo stable overall support. If they, like canon also over office equipment and printers, you can see a fit from image capture to finished image. To me it makes sence

[jatrax]

there will be firings and retirements. I'd expect that'll mostly be in marketing, where Pentax hasn't exactly been a whiz.

Pentax had a marketing department?

According to the original press release: "Through this acquisition, Ricoh plans to 1) enhance its digital camera businesses (especially the
interchangeable lens camera market which is expected to grow), 2) create value-added businesses for
taken photographs (creation and development of value-added services that encourage seeing, storing
and refinishing photographs and utilize photographs as communication tools), and 3) expand to other
fields (study of entry into the image archiving business using medium-format digital cameras and
enhancement of security-related products)

That sounds to me like Ricoh is continuing to try and compete head to head with Canon. Which makes the Pentax brand and products a key component of a balanced camera to output (print or archive) imaging strategy.

[séamuis]

the problem with your worries jerryst, is that what you fear about this merger and your reasons given for that fear describe the buying out of Pentax by Hoya, who did indeed gut Pentax and took what they wanted. Ricoh bought up the imaging division to essentially make it the best camera company they can. your fears are a few years too late to the scene and aimed at the wrong company.

[magkelly]

I don't worry so much about it because in terms of photographic items and name brands Pentax is the better brand for Ricoh to use. Yeah, they made Ricoh SLR's at one time and some of them were decent cameras, but who really knows them now? Pentax people mainly. Because we share a lens mount and can swap some lenses. But most people on the street wouldn't know Ricoh for SLR cameras, let alone DSLR's. Pentax is a better brand for them to keep. It's not as popular a brand as say Canon or Nikon too, but it still commands a heck of a lot more respect than Ricoh. Most people if they recall Ricoh makes cameras at all think of them as being the generic camera maker for Sears. That's not a bad thing, but with the rep Sears has of late I wouldn't want that association made much. Pentax is a niche brand but it's a respected niche brand and it makes more sense for Ricoh to keep that name and that tech and to use it than not.

[sjwaldron]

Ricoh doesn't have that much in the way of camera offerings, and they actually used Pentax mounts for their cameras in the past. I really don't see much overlap that matters.

I find it a bit odd that Ricoh wants to keep both names active in the camera business, but I think it just might be their unwillingness to give up their own brand for cameras. They realize that Pentax has more brand recognition for cameras, so they certainly don't want to give that up either.

[Douglas_of_Sweden]

Haven't you seen the new advertisements? They say "Pentax" in big letters and below in smaller letters "a Ricoh company". Not Ricoh, not Pentax-Ricoh. So don't panic, they know the value of the brand.

[interested_observer]

I am an engineer - that's what I do. However, I am smart enough to know that you need marketing to identify and understand the market segment that you are building a product for. Once built, you need marketing to market it for you so that sales can effectively sell it. Other than engineering all of this has been sorely lacking at Pentax. If Ricoh wants to go head to head, I believe that they are starting to make the right moves. Hoya did indeed do both good (645d and K5), and bad by keeping the parts of Pentax that they wanted (also keeping the right to use the Pentax brand name for their medical products) and sold the rest off to Ricoh.

So, this has to be taken as a positive opportunity. Its going to take time and money to make things right. We have seen that technically Pentax can continue putting out some good products - 645D and the K7 and the K5. The K5 problems were not needed, however I hope that Ricoh corrects this very quickly by moving to address these QC problems. The stupidity with the removal of the tethering capability after the K20, is bothersome. You do not take features out of top of the line cameras. The lack of a lens road-map is troublesome also. Ricoh has the opportunity here to make some announcements and actions that certainly can demonstrate that they have some understanding of the fundamental problems and show that they are concerned with them.

Haven't you seen the new advertisements? They say "Pentax" in big letters and below in smaller letters "a Ricoh company". Not Ricoh, not Pentax-Ricoh. So don't panic, they know the value of the brand.

A month or so ago, I remember writing that I hope that they - Ricoh, would do exactly this - "Pentax" in big letters and below in smaller letters "a Ricoh company". I think that is one very positive sign. So far, so good.