Originally posted by Clavius I don't know if this is a slight zephyr. In my opinion Pentax disappearing is a falling sky.
I think the name change has just made things a little clearer. Many of us, myself included, still think of Pentax as a company. It is not any longer, and has not been for a long time. It was a division of Hoya, it was (briefly) 'A Ricoh Company' and now it is only a brand. It was originally just a brand of Asahi but became so popular they changed the name of the company to match so I guess we have come full circle.
I just read through the Kawauchi interview (
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-mirrorless-camera-discussion/23339...tax-brand.html ) and the use of the illustrations of name placement suddenly made it hit home to me. Ricoh wants top billing. So no longer 'Pentax Ricoh' it is 'Ricoh Pentax' just like it used to be 'Asahi Pentax'. Ego? Corporate pride? Or just reality? Are senior executives still smarting from the fact that Pentax SLR's sold better than Ricoh SLR's 40 years ago? Is this payback for having to go to Pentax for the k-mount back then? Who knows.
Whether this integration was part of the plan from day one or if they tried it as a separate company and did not get the results they wanted, I have no idea. We did hear rumors that 'integration' was not going as fast as anticipated. Maybe they felt the only way to get everyone on board was to make sure they understood who they worked for: Ricoh, which just happens to own a brand name called 'Pentax'. This is now a Ricoh product line and they want people to know that.
It is a paradigm shift for me that will take some time to get used to but at least now I have changed how I look at this and can start to think about Pentax differently. It will be like Lumix is to Panasonic or Vaio or NEX is to Sony, just a brand for a collection of products. The history, tradition and mystique involved with what started as Ashai Optical Company is gone. Whether that is as bad as it sounds is up to Ricoh. If they continue to make products that are in line with the reasons why we bought into Pentax in the first place I see no problems and perhaps even great things. If they use the name to try and sell cheap junk like so many other once great brands then that will be a sad thing.