[bossa]

What are we then; we who haven't bought any equipment yet from this company, but most likely will do so? Will we perhaps be Ricohnians..?

Well, if you're female you could be known as a Ricochette... pun intended

[Traditional]

Well, if you're female you could be known as a Ricochette... pun intended

I am just a simple man, therefore I think I stay with, well, Ricohnian, or something of the kind. Or, ehr, I will give up and buy a Nikon...

[Frater]

I believe there will be no "Ricohian" or whatever

A secretary wouldn't want to call herself "Ricohnian" in her discussions with other secretaries about office copiers. That would just sound rediculous, wouldn't it?

Or I wouldn't want to call myself (or anyone else) an "Electroluxian", just because me (or someone else) happens to use an Electrolux branded washing mashine at home. It's just not sexy

[tclausen]

I believe there will be no "Ricohian" or whatever

A secretary wouldn't want to call herself "Ricohnian" in her discussions with other secretaries about office copiers. That would just sound rediculous, wouldn't it?

Or I wouldn't want to call myself (or anyone else) an "Electroluxian", just because me (or someone else) happens to use an Electrolux branded washing mashine at home. It's just not sexy

Well, there are those who call themselves "general electricians", though - although that does not necessarily have any relationship with their choice of home appliances

Are we through the rabbit-hole yet?

[RussV]

I don't think Ricoh would buy a company just to dispose of the name and a key component of the product line. They'd just be throwing away the very things that give it value. It would make more sense to release their own brand name DSLR's with a new mount in the first place.

There are plenty of well know brands (not in the camera world) that change hands. New owners want to buy into the sentiment\trust (what ever you want to cal)l it that a brand carries. Very often a product is stongly associated too.

[anthony mazzeri]

Ricoh-chez..

The Ricoh name replaces the Asahi name as the manufacturer of respected Pentax D/SLRs. So Pentax users should still remain Pentaxians.

I'd actually take that as a good sign that by announcing they are absorbing the company completely under their own umbrella now that Ricoh is officially committing themselves to it for the long haul. Perhaps before they were in a process of still assessing the viability of their acquisition as 'Pentax Ricoh' at arm's length until they decided one way or the other. Now they've announced what they've decided - they're going to keep the baby.

[Frater]

Oh, actually, this point could raise our alarm bells.
Maybe, Ricoh want to sell the Pentax product line short-term again, and the name change is just an early warning sign.
I was already worried, that I haven't seen much investments in much innovations recently (apart from making pink bodys with green grips possible)
(only joking)

It's too early to judge about recent Investments into innovations. Let's wait until September or so (or whenever the K-5 replacement will be anounced). If Pentax pushes itself on top of the stack of its class again, then it'l be fine. If it'll be just a new sensor into an old body, along with 100 body colour options, then I know, it's 'the end'.

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Last edited by Frater; 07-03-2013 at 02:45 AM.

[Uluru]

When I first heard "Pentax Ricoh Imaging Company" (P.R.I.C.), a subsidiary name for a newly formed entity under Ricoh, I thought guys at Ricoh went crazy.

Did they consult a brand specialist, who could check what the pronunciations means in English? Car manufacturers do that all the time, check new product names against numerous dictionaries.

With more frequent appearances in public press releases and in corporate life, they'd be a butt of a joke — not taken seriously at all.

But a new decision is a good sign, obviously. I hope we may expect more frequent and more serious announcements from August 1st 2013.

[bossa]

I am just a simple man, therefore I think I stay with, well, Ricohnian, or something of the kind. Or, ehr, I will give up and buy a Nikon...

I was actually just having a little play with the word ricochet...

I believe the name change is about Ricoh and has nothing to do with Pentax, as was the initial choice of a merged name. The fact that they incorporated the names of the two companies in the 1st place is evidence Ricoh were trying to increase the profile of the Ricoh camera brand based on their perceived value/respect of the Pentax brand. If they were serious about developing Pentax as a 'brand' then they should have allowed Pentax to exist as a subsidiary company (with its own complete product line) and financed it in the short term so as to get them back on track. I cannot see rationalizing product lines over two different brand names really benefiting anyone, it is a compromise at best.

But then again: Ibanez guitars are a huge brand in the music industry but they do not own a single factory; they are produced under license by Fujigen and one or two other manufacturers. Maybe the Pentax brand can survive in a similar way.

[Kunzite]

Oh, actually, this point could raise our alarm bells.

My alarm bell turned back to sleep and told me not to bother it until something happens.

If they were serious about developing Pentax as a 'brand' then they should have allowed Pentax to exist as a subsidiary company (with its own complete product line) and financed it in the short term so as to get them back on track. I cannot see rationalizing product lines over two different brand names really benefiting anyone, it is a compromise at best.

IMHO sharing technologies etc between the two brands is the smart thing to do, and possible by having them both into a single company.
It may be a compromise, but it's the best compromise they can do: they won't give up on 'Ricoh' because that's their name, and they can't give up on 'Pentax' because it's too valuable to do so.

[mecrox]

My alarm bell turned back to sleep and told me not to bother it until something happens.

IMHO sharing technologies etc between the two brands is the smart thing to do, and possible by having them both into a single company.
It may be a compromise, but it's the best compromise they can do: they won't give up on 'Ricoh' because that's their name, and they can't give up on 'Pentax' because it's too valuable to do so.

In any case, they have to keep their options open because no one knows what might come down the road over the next few years in terms of the direction of the camera market and technology.

Another analogy: book publishing companies have scores of different imprints appealing to different segments of the overall market. No one complains that they aren't independent companies, though some imprints may have started that way before being taken over. Many years or even decades later the name is still happily going because it has become so well identified with a certain kind of book or subject that it's far too valuable to drop, and usually it has attracted specialist staff who know their part of the market better than anyone. If the market changes so completely that the name is no longer relevant and loses its raison d'etre, well fair enough to retire it. But this is true of anything anyway, not just books or in our case cameras.

[WPRESTO]

When I first heard "Pentax Ricoh Imaging Company" (P.R.I.C.), a subsidiary name for a newly formed entity under Ricoh, I thought guys at Ricoh went crazy.

Did they consult a brand specialist, who could check what the pronunciations means in English? Car manufacturers do that all the time, check new product names against numerous dictionaries.

.

V-A-V checking meanings in other languages. A famous error was made by Rolls Royce, dubbing a new model the "Silver Mist" before discovering that "Mist" in German means: excrement, dung, cr--, sh-- BEWARE of four letter words.

BTW, Teaching comparative vertebrate anatomy, we'd come to the baculum or "os pe---," an extra bone in some mammals that reinforces the male member. It is present in Primates (but not humans or spider monkeys), Rodentia, Insectivora (shrews, hedgehog), Carnivora, and Chrioptera (bats). How to remember where it arises? Take the first letter of the formal name for each group. The most famous of these bones comes from the walrus (genus Odobenus) and is known as a oosik (probably an "Eskimo" word). About 18 inches (0.4m) long, shaped somewhat like a baseball bat, and very heavy (walrus bones are exceptionally dense). Oosiks were traditionally kept behind the bar in some Alaskan saloons to subdue unruly drunks. There's a famous poem about "The Mighty Pe--- of Odobenus." According to Wikipedia, an oosik from a fossil walrus found by a private collector measured 4.5 feet (1.4 meter). Now that is a real "boner."

[RonHendriks1966]

Sony did it to Minolta. I won't be surprise if the next "big-release" will have the Ricoh logo on them........"All new Ricoh Full Frame dSLR....

Maybe that would be a good thing. Investing in a brandname is expensive and connecting the Pentax cameraline to the Ricoh brand is more expensive and less effective then changing the name to Ricoh.

I would love that Full Frame Ricoh..........!

[Aristophanes]

Pentax = K-mount.

Ricoh = everything else.

It was the same under Asahi, and other Inc.'s before that.

Pentax never made rangefinder's and only dabbled in point and shoots when the 1980's market trend made that unavoidable. Of course it was P&S innovations that eventually made digital an easier transition.

Nothing has changed.

Time to move on.

[andre-mz5]

The name Pentax will be reserved fot the DSLR products, so the FF DSLR will be a PENTAX
Japanese firms often use special brand names for a specific line of products : everybody knows that a LEXUS is a car/product made by Toyota.