Forgot Password
Pentax Camera Forums Home
 

Reply
Show Printable Version Search this Thread
09-14-2013, 07:11 AM   #496
Loyal Site Supporter
Loyal Site Supporter
monochrome's Avatar

Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Working From Home
Photos: Gallery | Albums
Posts: 26,276
QuoteOriginally posted by Uluru Quote
Another answer would be that they think — as Ricoh's CEO has said in April when addressing the shareholders — that Ricoh's offer in photography industry is currently weak, and that they are working to make it stronger. Until that happens — nothing happens.
Well that's sort saying the same thing - except it isn't "nothing happens' but "other, more fundamental things happen."

Not helpful if one is in Australia and captive to CRK. At least we have Denver quietly prepping some interesting events for the fall.

09-14-2013, 07:21 AM   #497
Banned




Join Date: May 2010
Location: Back to my Walkabout Creek
Photos: Gallery | Albums
Posts: 2,535
QuoteOriginally posted by monochrome Quote
Well that's sort saying the same thing - except it isn't "nothing happens' but "other, more fundamental things happen."
Not helpful if one is in Australia and captive to CRK. At least we have Denver quietly prepping some interesting events for the fall.
:
Well, at least CRK's webstore is not outsourced, and their Pentax and Ricoh deals are delivered promptly and as promised.
Jokes aside, right now, I think it doesn't matter where we are — the real issue is that no one here knows where the Ricoh's eggs are.
09-14-2013, 07:43 AM   #498
Site Supporter
Site Supporter
wizofoz's Avatar

Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Melbourne, Outer east.
Photos: Gallery | Albums
Posts: 1,695
QuoteOriginally posted by Uluru Quote
The GR, perhaps the K-3-equivalent for Ricoh brand, was announced in April and I'm not sure that many people outside Japan knew anything about it. The venue was private, organised by Ricoh and not associated with any show.
I expect a similar, low-profile announcement for anything related to Pentax this year too. Like those new flashes and DA Ltds with red ring.
I take your point about the GR . I fully expect Ricoh to tread a different marketing path to canikony. It can't hurl.

I'm not in the 'full frame or I'm jumping' camp. i happen to be perfectly content with what I believe to be a wonderful piece of engineering in the K- 5 classic. I really don't see how my photography could be Improved by a 35mm sensor.

I do a lot of photo workshops and everyone of them has a roughly 70/30 canon/Nikon turnout (with me as the token 'other'). In reviewing what is submitted by the various contributors to these common shoots I find that what I can produce with my k-5 and some very wonderful lenses is more than a match for people of similar or lesser skills with much more 'vaunted' camera systems. I'm particularly unimpressed with the output of the canon 5dmkII which seems to be an industry standard. The L series lenses seem to me to be far too big and unwieldy compared to say, my fa 77 or 43 or da 55 or the wondrous 50-135. The Nikon lenses are more svelte, but no match for my pentaxes in ergonomics.

The latest example was today's workshop. Some bloke with a 'blah' d7000 thought he was the bees knees. He announced to every body that he had been shooting 'about 2 years', but came to a portrait shoot with a sigma 17 - 70 (the cheap one) and a fast 50 and fast 35mm lens. He proudly announced that he intended to turn 'pro' In the next few months because he had to as he had spent 'so much money' on his gear. The odd thing was he didn't seem know what an f stop was, or how it would effect his image, or what difference a lens length would make to a portrait shoot....etc

My point? It is not always the path well travelled that gets the results. Let Ricoh do whatever they do, sit back and wait. I find it hard to believe that a company as large and successful as Ricoh makes a major purchase like Pentax without some sort of game plan. The most hyped toys are not always the best. I've got a pocketful of lenses that prove it.

But then again, I have a lot of toys.......
09-14-2013, 07:53 AM   #499
Site Supporter
Site Supporter
wizofoz's Avatar

Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Melbourne, Outer east.
Photos: Gallery | Albums
Posts: 1,695
QuoteOriginally posted by monochrome Quote
It appears Ricoh doesn't see the value in paying to show wares at Trade Shows. They (hopefully) will do other things with the money.
Does Olympus have a a bigger marketing budget than Ricoh/Pentax? I thought olly was corrupt/broke.

There was a huge and impressive Olympus display where they challenged anyone to pit the output of their camera against an Olympus.( It was well past beer o'clock before I found this out or I would have put them to the k-5 test)

09-14-2013, 08:20 AM   #500
Loyal Site Supporter
Loyal Site Supporter
monochrome's Avatar

Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Working From Home
Photos: Gallery | Albums
Posts: 26,276
It is a decision, not a capacity question.
09-14-2013, 08:48 AM   #501
Veteran Member




Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Tennessee
Posts: 6,617
QuoteOriginally posted by wizofoz Quote
Does Olympus have a a bigger marketing budget than Ricoh/Pentax? I thought olly was corrupt/broke.
There is broke and then there broke..... In the business world being broke doesn't mean the same thing as it does for individuals.

Hoya slashed its R&D budget and fired the top lens designers as was able to show a profit.

Olympus has been investing a lot of money in R&D (AF and 5-axis IBIS) and developing a lot of high quality glass... And laundering money for the Yakuza.

Sony invest $642 million in Olympus..... Ricoh bought the entire Pentax brand/company for $150 million. Olympus as a brand/company is in a much better place than Pentax. Olympus actually has R&D and Marketing.
09-14-2013, 09:33 AM   #502
Pentaxian




Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Romania
Posts: 15,132
I don't remember the $125 million Nikkei estimate ever being confirmed, but it seems it is now the accepted "truth". Oh, well...
Olympus is whole, including a strong medical division (and, like with Hoya and Pentax, that's what Sony's interested in). I agree, they invested quite a lot into the 4/3 and m4/3, but that doesn't makes them healthier. Their 4/3 system, pretty young and marketed a lot, with all its "pro" glass, is now officially dead; and the last IR report is talking about "an increase in operating loss in the Imaging Systems Business".


Last edited by Kunzite; 09-14-2013 at 09:54 AM.
09-14-2013, 09:46 AM   #503
Pentaxian
thibs's Avatar

Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Belgium
Photos: Albums
Posts: 7,001
QuoteOriginally posted by Winder Quote
There is broke and then there broke..... In the business world being broke doesn't mean the same thing as it does for individuals.

Hoya slashed its R&D budget and fired the top lens designers as was able to show a profit.

Olympus has been investing a lot of money in R&D (AF and 5-axis IBIS) and developing a lot of high quality glass... And laundering money for the Yakuza.

Sony invest $642 million in Olympus..... Ricoh bought the entire Pentax brand/company for $150 million. Olympus as a brand/company is in a much better place than Pentax. Olympus actually has R&D and Marketing.
Mmm better have a small business gaining money than a big one with solvency problems IMO.
09-14-2013, 09:48 AM - 1 Like   #504
Loyal Site Supporter
Loyal Site Supporter
monochrome's Avatar

Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Working From Home
Photos: Gallery | Albums
Posts: 26,276
QuoteOriginally posted by Winder Quote
There is broke and then there broke..... In the business world being broke doesn't mean the same thing as it does for individuals.

Hoya slashed its R&D budget and fired the top lens designers as was able to show a profit.

Olympus has been investing a lot of money in R&D (AF and 5-axis IBIS) and developing a lot of high quality glass... And laundering money for the Yakuza.

Sony invest $642 million in Olympus..... Ricoh bought the entire Pentax brand/company for $150 million. Olympus as a brand/company is in a much better place than Pentax. Olympus actually has R&D and Marketing.
Hoya acquired Pentax in 2007 for $1 Billion, including endoscopes. Pentax was already restructuring, having sold eyeglasses and making refinancings, and fending off a initial offer from Hoya and Sparx (Long PF History Post from 12/2006). IMHO Pentax last made a good business decision in about 1968, but that's just my opinion.

Sony's investment is just an equity investment, but makes Sony the largest shareholder in Oly, which includes all the other optical equipment products of Olympus, not just cameras, and forms a new joint venture for medical equipment.

I suspect Hoya very quietly moved younger optical engineers to the medical devices companies, retired the older engineers, then sold Pentax Imaging for $125MM because the ROE was less than 20% - their minimum standard. There remains a Pentax engineering team, and a Ricoh engineering team was merged to it.

There is Ricoh capital and cash flow. Ricoh is conservative, iterative and long-term oriented. Pentax played for the splashy Milestone every five years -- the Hail Mary pass that would save the company. We're not accustomed yet to the change in philosophy.
09-14-2013, 10:10 AM   #505
Veteran Member
mecrox's Avatar

Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Oxford, UK
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 2,375
QuoteOriginally posted by monochrome Quote
Hoya acquired Pentax in 2007 for $1 Billion, including endoscopes. Pentax was already restructuring, having sold eyeglasses and making refinancings, and fending off a initial offer from Hoya and Sparx (Long PF History Post from 12/2006). IMHO Pentax last made a good business decision in about 1968, but that's just my opinion.

Sony's investment is just an equity investment, but makes Sony the largest shareholder in Oly, which includes all the other optical equipment products of Olympus, not just cameras, and forms a new joint venture for medical equipment.

I suspect Hoya very quietly moved younger optical engineers to the medical devices companies, retired the older engineers, then sold Pentax Imaging for $125MM because the ROE was less than 20% - their minimum standard. There remains a Pentax engineering team, and a Ricoh engineering team was merged to it.

There is Ricoh capital and cash flow. Ricoh is conservative, iterative and long-term oriented. Pentax played for the splashy Milestone every five years -- the Hail Mary pass that would save the company. We're not accustomed yet to the change in philosophy.
I don't think anyone yet has any idea what this "philosophy" might be. Ricoh are primarily a B2B company, as were Hoya. The irony is that Olympus might still be going and still turning out loss-making cameras long after Ricoh has folded Pentax because Ricoh's B2B philosophy - "conservative, iterative and long-term oriented" - translated to the consumer electronics world as "intensely dull, overpriced and hard to find" and so no one bought any of their cameras.

Of course I am playing devil's advocate. But in the fashion-led, fickle CE world I'd imagine one needs buzz, pizzazz, excitement, etc, etc. Ricoh are clearly nosing around this - witness their recent marketing around reasons to choose Pentax - but they are not there yet. To their credit they are at least further along the road than Hoya which never left the starting blocks. Still, ways to go. Christmas and the end-of-year buying season are roaring up upon us and there is still silence from Japan ...
09-14-2013, 10:30 AM   #506
Loyal Site Supporter
Loyal Site Supporter
monochrome's Avatar

Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Working From Home
Photos: Gallery | Albums
Posts: 26,276
See, here's the thing. Ricoh isn't thinking so much about Christmas 2013. They're thinking more about Christmas 2020. If I have to choose whether Ricoh or Olympus will be making cameras in 2020 I'd pick Ricoh in heartbeat.

I really don't understand the fetish with doom of Pentax talk unless it is that Pentax has been sort of going bankrupt since the 70's and sort of went out of business when Hoya bought them - so now all people can think is they're going out of business. We keep making the same points about this and that being broken or wrong or not done. And as Ricoh fixes things we say, "Well, sure, they're actually marketing, but it isn't good marketing, or they don't have the right stuff to compete, or they're not in the stores so what good will it do, or it isn't FF . . . . . . "

So what will people complain about here when all those things are fixed and they have 15% of the market?

Last edited by monochrome; 09-14-2013 at 01:01 PM.
09-14-2013, 10:35 AM   #507
Veteran Member




Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Tennessee
Posts: 6,617
QuoteOriginally posted by Kunzite Quote
I don't remember the $150 Nikkei estimate ever being confirmed, but it seems it is now the accepted "truth". Oh, well...
Olympus is whole, including a strong medical division (and, like with Hoya and Pentax, that's what Sony's interested in). I agree, they invested quite a lot into the 4/3 and m4/3, but that doesn't makes them healthier. Their 4/3 system, pretty young and marketed a lot, with all its "pro" glass, is now officially dead; and the last IR report is talking about "an increase in operating loss in the Imaging Systems Business".
Terms of the deal were not disclosed but Japanese business paper Nikkei Business Daily reports a price of about 10 billion yen ($124.2 million).

The news reports were at $124 million.

Olympus is much healthier with substantial assets. Pentax was/is a gutted shell that will take a few years to rebuild. While it is possible Sony just shelled out $600 million without doing its due diligence on health and value of Olympus, I highly doubt that to be the case.

An operating loss... yes.... I try to run an operating loss ever year for tax reasons. If I was trying to sell my company I would cut costs to show a profit, and make my company look more valuable from a cash flow perspective.

Last edited by Winder; 09-14-2013 at 10:52 AM.
09-14-2013, 10:51 AM   #508
Veteran Member




Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: Tennessee
Posts: 6,617
QuoteOriginally posted by thibs Quote
Mmm better have a small business gaining money than a big one with solvency problems IMO.
No. Better to have a company that is investing in its future (R&D) and just breaking even. Olympus didn't have a solvency problem. They could have reduced costs if that was needed. They could have done what Pentax did and slash R&D and future product development. Olympus had quite a few options and Sony made them the best deal. Its a win/win for both companies so far. Long-run, who knows?
09-14-2013, 11:02 AM - 1 Like   #509
Veteran Member
mecrox's Avatar

Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Oxford, UK
Photos: Gallery
Posts: 2,375
QuoteOriginally posted by monochrome Quote
See, here's the thing. Ricoh isn't thinking so much about Christmas 2013. They're thinking more about Christmas 2020. If I have to choose whether Pentax or Ricoh will be making cameras in 2020 I'd pcik Ricoh in heartbeat.

I really don't understand the fetish with doom of Pentax talk unless it is that Pentax has been sort of going bankrupt since the 70's and sort of went out of business when Hoya bought them - so now all people can think is they're going out of business. We keep making the same points about this and that being broken or wrong or not done. And as Ricoh fixes things we say, "Well, sure, they're actually marketing, but it isn't good marketing, or they don't have the right stuff to compete, or they're not in the stores so what good will it do, or it isn't FF . . . . . . "

So what will people complain about here when all those things are fixed and they have 15% of the market?
It's not doom. It's more like gloom, watching many of the others making all the running and getting their ducks in a row for the end-year selling season. It's easy to say "oh, nice camera but they are simply losing money" or "who needs that gimmick?" but it's the others whose cameras are in the stores and, in many cases anyway, selling through. And as for thinking about Christmas 2020 rather than Christmas 2013, imho it's a great way to bankrupt a company. Nokia tried to bet the farm on an imagined and imaginary future using the assumptions current in about 2002, But they hadn't thought of the iPhone and then and look what happened. I'd have thought the premium these days is on quick, nimble, adaptable so that a company can focus much closer in and can be quickly re-purposed to take the best advantage of new technology or simply accommodate unexpected events like natural disasters or banking crises. It's the lumbering ones who can't change quickly which are at risk, I think. Digital photography is still in relatively early days. There are a lot of changes and surprises still to come.
09-14-2013, 11:05 AM   #510
Pentaxian




Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Romania
Posts: 15,132
I took the $150 million from your post, then edited to 125 - but whatever. Your quote is from DPReview, way too far away from the source; and I don't trust a single source (Nikkei) anyway. If the exact number is known, why only Nikkei knows about it?

As I said, Olympus is whole; and you're comparing all of it with Pentax Imaging Systems. Yet Olympus Imaging Systems is about 14.5% (net sales from total), and their only division which is healthy and growing is, unsurprisingly, Olympus Medical Systems (which accounts for more than half of the entire company). Medical Systems is what Sony's interested in, and not IS.

Then, Canon and Nikon is doing wrong by making large profits and Olympus is doing it right Come on, you know very well that's not why they're losing money.
Reply

Bookmarks
  • Submit Thread to Facebook Facebook
  • Submit Thread to Twitter Twitter
  • Submit Thread to Digg Digg
Tags - Make this thread easier to find by adding keywords to it!
cameras, check, christmas, discussion, future, pentax, pentax news, pentax rumors, plans, releases
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Beginner's Woe's with new Camera Stevizzy Troubleshooting and Beginner Help 25 10-29-2012 08:10 AM
Photokina 2012: Leica presents its new S medium format camera jogiba Canon, Nikon, Sony, and Other Camera Brands 5 09-21-2012 01:45 AM
Machinery Dividing by Zero: Mama's New Ride Sailor Post Your Photos! 29 02-04-2012 11:29 AM
Misc A New Christmas Camera . . . . . Sailor Post Your Photos! 18 01-01-2011 06:52 AM
Pentax's Third new camera..... New Distribution Channel interested_observer Pentax News and Rumors 50 09-30-2010 12:23 PM



All times are GMT -7. The time now is 10:20 PM. | See also: NikonForums.com, CanonForums.com part of our network of photo forums!
  • Red (Default)
  • Green
  • Gray
  • Dark
  • Dark Yellow
  • Dark Blue
  • Old Red
  • Old Green
  • Old Gray
  • Dial-Up Style
Hello! It's great to see you back on the forum! Have you considered joining the community?
register
Creating a FREE ACCOUNT takes under a minute, removes ads, and lets you post! [Dismiss]
Top