[Aristophanes]

They can call the shots. That doesn't imply that they have called the shots on the UPP debacle. Let's separate facts from opinion.

BTW, your "It's called falling on your sword for head office!" is as much of an admission that you are calling Ned a (paid) liar as I need.

You're not a liar if head office tells you to state the official line.

Corporations are a conspiracy, remember?

You are elevating Ned Bunnell to the status of independent operator. He's not "Ned", he's a corporate officer and what he says is what Pentax head office says. As Pentax spokesman, if he's lying, Pentax is responsible.

That's how corporate hierarchies work .

[ElJamoquio]

You're not a liar if head office tells you to state the official line.

Corporations are a conspiracy, remember?

You are elevating Ned Bunnell to the status of independent operator. He's not "Ned", he's a corporate officer and what he says is what Pentax head office says. As Pentax spokesman, if he's lying, Pentax is responsible.

That's how corporate hierarchies work .

...an interesting analogy would be a military one...

[Class A]

You're not a liar if head office tells you to state the official line.

I disagree.

If you consciously speak the untruth, you are lying. No matter whether you are doing it out of your own free will or due to a command.

With respect to "lying" allegiance must always be to the truth. No one can command a lie to be just "what needs to be said".

As ElJamoquio points out, if you take your position to the military domain, you are stating that if a person is ordered to kill innocent women and children, the person could commit murder without being a murderer. Again, I disagree.

Moral standards are agnostic of command hierarchies. Anyone attempting to get away with immoral actions in a command hierarchy is (unsuccessfully) trying to absolve themselves of personal responsibility.

[Kunzite]

Looks like the increases were a worldwide move from the head office

Breaking news: there was no worldwide price increase.

[mecrox]

Breaking news: there was no worldwide price increase.

Sigh. This stuff is not a US-only thing. You keep playing Inspector Clouseau when the clues are in frernt oeuf ze nose that it's a move by Ricoh HQ to enforce worldwide pricing (just like many other corporations). Why? Because without it Ricoh will return to a situation where cheaper prices in territory A destroy sales in territory B via online selling et al as well as ruin the kind of sales they want in each territory through undercutting by retailers they cannot control. The difficulty at the moment appears to be that Pentax is a minnow in a large pond and Ricoh have overplayed their hand. So we'll see.

[Kunzite]

Sigh as much as you wish, it still won't make it a worldwide price increase.

[mecrox]

Sigh as much as you wish, it still won't make it a worldwide price increase.

Which wasn't what I said if you ready my post. I said it was a worldwide move (i..e centrally directed, not just from Pentax in NA). For what it's worth I think it is and it's a worldwide move to increase prices to achieve parity with Canonikon. That doesn't mean prices have risen in every territory but nor does it mean they have only risen in North America. In some territories Pentax products were already fully priced (or fully overpriced, au choix). Now they all are.

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Last edited by mecrox; 06-11-2012 at 11:24 PM.

[Kunzite]

My bad, I thought a worldwide move means something with worldwide effects.
While I don't believe Ned&co to be puppets (it seems quite a ridiculous idea, overseas micromanagement?) it's reasonable to believe they at least get some general directions from Japan. The UPP was clearly US-only, but... we don't know all the details.

[vanyagor]

I had to make this choice a year ago. I chose the Pentax for it's weather sealing, and I have certainly used it.

This is exactly my point. Pentax is offering something extra, in your case the WR. And I guess in the case of amoringello there was that something (maybe WR as well) that made the 16-50 look a better value than say Tamron 17-50. The point is there are alternatives and if you opt to pay more for a certain feature it means it offers you better value. The point I was trying to make is that someone who has purchased Pentax lenses at inflated prices did nevertheless believe it is still good value. Of course it is nice to buy something at half the value, though why should Pentax be selling its lenses at half the value to those for whom even the MSRP is good value? The prices on Pentax lenses are driven down by those users (like me) who will not pay a $1000 premium for WR for instance. This type of users were not affected since they would not be willing to pay top dollar, while those who may have been affected simply payed what still was good value for them, so I do not see why we should pity them and attack Pentax for the fact that some customers see great value in Pentax products.

I think we are beating a dead horse here. I personally live by the rule: buy what (and when) you need, want and can afford, never regret the money spent (since you bought it it did seam to be needed/wanted enough to pay the price, right?). And if something is too expensive (you can not afford it) just move on and look for alternatives. Life is so much easier and delightful this way! Trust me

[vanyagor]

There's no reason a 'unilateral pricing policy' is or should be the equivalent of 'MSRP required policy'. I think everyone's been predicting the prices will come down - how could they NOT come down - but the question becomes.. who 1) approved or 2) required or 3) made the retailers believe that Pentax required ... an MSRP required pricing strategy?

I think one of the many points most posters are missing is that
we do not actually know the details of the agreement. we do not know for a fact that Pentax MAP = MSRP. We only know that major retailers opted for prices close to MSRP. This could have happened for several reasons other than the agreement itself. For instance, there could have been a break in production (with all the ownership change it could have taken some time to make decisions to continue to produce some items or not). In this example retailers could have been simply waiting for new stock to arrive and until this happens they could easily set the prices at MSRP, simply because they didn't have much stock left (and it seems consistent with my observation of Amazon stock). Retailers could in fact take advantage of the MAP news and set the prices at MSRP expecting Pentax will be getting all the blame. Anyway, one can think of many plausible explanations. The point is neither of us has that information. So any hand waving is just BS and simply unprofessional, At least one should be less arrogant in knowing better than Pentax how to run a business like that IMHO.

[Rondec]

I disagree.

If you consciously speak the untruth, you are lying. No matter whether you are doing it out of your own free will or due to a command.

With respect to "lying" allegiance must always be to the truth. No one can command a lie to be just "what needs to be said".

As ElJamoquio points out, if you take your position to the military domain, you are stating that if a person is ordered to kill innocent women and children, the person could commit murder without being a murderer. Again, I disagree.

Moral standards are agnostic of command hierarchies. Anyone attempting to get away with immoral actions in a command hierarchy is (unsuccessfully) trying to absolve themselves of personal responsibility.

It's a little extreme to be calling anyone liars here. Ned was told the official line, which was that Pentax in the united states was going to be requiring retailers to charge MSRP. I am sure he grumbled, but was told that that was just the way things were. I felt like he was honest with regard to the reasons he had been told for the policy shift. At the same time, all of the power lies with Pentax Japan and they are looking at worldwide sales, not just the US.

Anyway, it is clear that the lens market dried up considerably and they "changed their minds" about the amount of the price increase.

It does make Ned look like someone with little power, but I don't think it makes him a liar. Policies change, sometimes very quickly and that was the case in this situation.

[Class A]

It's a little extreme to be calling anyone liars here.

I'm not calling him a liar. Aristophanes and everyone subscribing to the "Ricoh ordered the UPP" idea implicitly calls him a liar. I don't.

Ned was told the official line, which was that Pentax in the united states was going to be requiring retailers to charge MSRP. I am sure he grumbled, but was told that that was just the way things were. I felt like he was honest with regard to the reasons he had been told for the policy shift.

Ned said Ricoh had nothing to do with the UPP. This statement is not compatible with your theory, unless you want to imply that Ned was lying.

Anyway, it is clear that the lens market dried up considerably and they "changed their minds" about the amount of the price increase.

It may appear "plausible" but we don't know anything about why, when, who changed their mind. Not "clear" at all.

[Rondec]

I'm not calling him a liar. Aristophanes and everyone subscribing to the "Ricoh ordered the UPP" idea implicitly calls him a liar. I don't.


Ned said Ricoh had nothing to do with the UPP. This statement is not compatible with your theory, unless you want to imply that Ned was lying.



It may appear "plausible" but we don't know anything about why, when, who changed their mind. Not "clear" at all.

Well, I think ultimately Ned took responsibility for the actions of Pentax as a whole, but I still don't think it was his decision to make. Seems unlikely that it would have been, anyway. As to whether or not this was already planned, or Ricoh's takeover had anything to do with it is unclear to me. That it flopped is clear beyond a shadow of a doubt.

[Aristophanes]

I disagree.

If you consciously speak the untruth, you are lying. No matter whether you are doing it out of your own free will or due to a command.

You are simply wrong. Everything Ned says as a corporate officer is coming from Pentax. There is no "Ned". He has a contractual and fiduciary duty to be Pentax USA, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pentax International, itself a wholly owned department of Ricoh.

If he's lying, Pentax is lying. There is no separation between what "Ned" says and Pentax says. That's an artifice of your own creation. He has no "free will" as a corporate officer. Every statement he issues is a statement with the weight and force of Tokyo's head office. He cannot step outside those constraints to comment on some perceived individualistic action of his USA department.

And it works in reverse. Due to the chain of ownership, Ricoh owns the UPP implementation fiasco. I see "Ned's" comments as a face-saving gesture--falling on his sword.

That is how multinational corporate responsibilities work.

Well, I think ultimately Ned took responsibility for the actions of Pentax as a whole, but I still don't think it was his decision to make.

Precisely.

[jmg257]

What???

Of course if Ned - or anyone else - said/says something he knows not to be true, then he WAS/IS lying...that's the definition! It doesn't really matter why or under whose orders. And if Pentax Whoever told him to lie, or to make a statement that (he knew) was a lie, then sure - it is their fault...but he still lied.

Lie: a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood.


{Note: Don't know whether he was or not, and don't really care.}