Originally posted by Alizarine I wonder if Pentax engineers are reading this thread. Wonder what they're thinking now that forum users are uh, virtually traveling over various cities in the world while waiting for their much-sought 'rumors' =))
During the Hoya era, one company official said something to the effect that dealing with the USA market was a major pain, and was of little value to Pentax, IIRC.
During PF's interview Mr. Hiraku Kawauchi, the planning and product manager of Pentax Japan at the CP+ show last February, he (Kawauchi) seemed surprised that PF features a database of all Pentax lenses. Though he did say he looked forward to build a relationship between Pentax Japan and PF.
Further, my take on the recent UPP lens price mess is that it came about because Pentax informed Ned in no uncertain terms that PRIAC was hurting Pentax big time and Ned
must get his house in order (or else).
In short, I think there is little to no awareness of PF among Pentax Japan employees. Maybe that will change over time if Ricoh brings a more progressive view of world markets and information sharing to the corporate culture.