[boriscleto]

Among SLRs, 39mm was Zenit.

And the Zenit 1 was just a Zorki rangefinder with a mirror and prism replacing the rangefinder. The Zorki being a Leica copy. It was released a year after the Asahiflex and 4 years before the Pentax.

[Kunzite]

Well I think that Ricoh is the last one to carry the Pentax brand. So they better succeed in it otherways the Pentaxbrand wil go to the museum.

Well, it could either be:
+ Ricoh selling Pentax for peanuts to some Chinese brand, causing a lot of confusion; or
+ Ricoh selling Ricoh Imaging - there is no separate "Pentax" entity to sell. But that's not where things are going; they're putting lots of money into it, to make it an important part of the Ricoh group.
Since neither makes any sense, I guess you're right

We should not be worried that corporations somehow likes to play ping-pong with Pentax, or that Pentax is particularly prone to being sold; that's nonsense. The way I see things, the only issue was that they were viable, but vulnerable enough so when their own shareholders (Sparx) started to conspire against them, there was nothing they could do. One year later, with the financial reports including K10D sales, things might have been different.
So it was an one-time event. How so, since Hoya sold them to Ricoh? Well, I see this (the Hoya-Ricoh transaction) as a consequence of the first (Sparx+Hoya vs. Pentax thing); it was something deemed to happen, as Hoya didn't care about the camera business.

[mikemike]

I don't think Ricoh would sell their camera business, I think they bought Pentax as a way to diversify away from office printers. People print a lot less than they used to and buy a lot more cameras than they used to.

[monochrome]

I don't think Ricoh would sell their camera business, I think they bought Pentax as a way to diversify away from office printers. People print a lot less than they used to and buy a lot more cameras than they used to.

Thirty years ago the computer was supposed to eliminate the use of paper in business. Then Canon invented the laser printer engine (and HP licensed the technology and funded Canon for 25 years) which exploded the use of paper office documents.

Finally the internet, the Cloud and Adobe pdf has begun to erode the use of paper documents. Office imaging machine manufacturers are transitioning to office document image management companies. An office copier / printing machine / production printer manufacturing company with a little history in imaging has a natural interest in owning an imaging company, especially one with a rich library of lens patents and digital image processing skill and technology. We write all the time about how the brilliant Pentax engineers manage to squeeeze a bit more out of Sony sensors - who owns those engineers now?

Looking 25 years down the road one should not be surprised to see digital imaging (in all its forms) as the larger business of Ricoh - and more brands of image capture devices under its umbrella. I wouldn't be surprised to see some other names on cameras but I would be surprised to see a name other than Pentax on lenses.

For these reasons I believe Ricoh wants to own, grow and keep Pentax. Long term, Ricoh believes Pentax is a growth business, not a hobby.

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Last edited by monochrome; 02-08-2014 at 02:40 PM.

[dansamy]

I'm optimistic for the future of Pentax as a brand of Ricoh Imaging. I think that Ricoh is moving in the right direction. They made a camera to be proud of & they have every right to put their name in just as prominent a place as the Pentax name.

[cfraz]

An office copier / printing machine / production printer manufacturing company with a little history in imaging has a natural interest in owning an imaging company, especially one with a rich library of lens patents and digital image processing skill and technology.

Indeed, the press release announcing their purchase of Pentax hinted at this (highlighting added):

Through this acquisition, Ricoh plans to 1) enhance its digital camera businesses (especially the interchangeable lens camera market which is expected to grow), 2) create value-added businesses for taken photographs (creation and development of value-added services that encourage seeing, storing and refinishing photographs and utilize photographs as communication tools), and 3) expand to other fields (study of entry into the image archiving business using medium-format digital cameras and enhancement of security-related products)

I agree with your oft-stated assessment that Ricoh is in this for the long haul; every official statement indicates so, and as far as I can tell, their actions are backing it up. Quite the opposite of Hoya's era.

[dansamy]

The "image archiving" portion is coming to market with the new film duplicator product.

[monochrome]

The "image archiving" portion is coming to market with the new film duplicator product.

The software will be interesting.

[mikemike]

If you think about software and connected cameras for business purposes, I think there are a lot of opportunities out there for a company like Ricoh - insurance adjusting and crime scene documentation are just a couple I can think of where you could go directly from camera to official record and spend less time doing office work instead of field work. There are probably lots of other types of opportunities like this in other fields of business.

[dansamy]

Pentax already has/had medical imaging with scopes. Certainly a division that could be leveraged.

[eurostar]

Thirty years ago the computer was supposed to eliminate the use of paper in business. Then Canon invented the laser printer engine (and HP licensed the technology and funded Canon for 25 years) which exploded the use of paper office documents.

Finally the internet, the Cloud and Adobe pdf has begun to erode the use of paper documents. Office imaging machine manufacturers are transitioning to office document image management companies. An office copier / printing machine / production printer manufacturing company with a little history in imaging has a natural interest in owning an imaging company, especially one with a rich library of lens patents and digital image processing skill and technology. We write all the time about how the brilliant Pentax engineers manage to squeeeze a bit more out of Sony sensors - who owns those engineers now?

Looking 25 years down the road one should not be surprised to see digital imaging (in all its forms) as the larger business of Ricoh - and more brands of image capture devices under its umbrella. I wouldn't be surprised to see some other names on cameras but I would be surprised to see a name other than Pentax on lenses.

For these reasons I believe Ricoh wants to own, grow and keep Pentax. Long term, Ricoh believes Pentax is a growth business, not a hobby.

If Ricoh would buy JVC, I would be even more happy. Paper copiers have no future, but still photography's future is not bright. Adding professional video capacity to Pentax would be a smart move.

[boriscleto]

Pentax already has/had medical imaging with scopes. Certainly a division that could be leveraged.

That was why Hoya bought Pentax. The camera division was going to be sold off from the start. It just took a while to find a buyer. The eyeglass division was sold off before the Hoya merger, Hoya sold the surveying division to a Taiwanese company.

[Kunzite]

In other words, Hoya is still the owner of the Pentax medical division (and they're using the Pentax brand for that).
Ricoh only bought the Pentax Imaging Systems Business, but that means more than consumer cameras; for example, security products or Factory Automation. The 645D IR edition was "designed for research companies, museums, libraries and specialized law enforcement units such as CSI units".

[mikemike]

If Ricoh would buy JVC, I would be even more happy. Paper copiers have no future, but still photography's future is not bright. Adding professional video capacity to Pentax would be a smart move.

I think that is unlikely to go well, JVC was owned by matsushita (panasonic) for a long time and recently was spun off and sold to kenwood who has been retreating from video. I suspect their supply and design chain is still aligned with Panasonic and no matter what, JVC is a hot mess and I don't think it would be smart for Ricoh to take on that struggling business.

[dansamy]

Well that's confusing for folks with one brand being marketed by two owners.