[goubejp]

No. Its not life. Beretta has been in business since 1526 or almost 500 years. They have been owned by the same family the entire time. Companies don't have to fail or be replaced. Companies fail because the people who run them fail. Kodak didn't have to fail. Had they made the right decisions and the right investments (products) they would still be an industry leader.

Consider a company like General Electric. Aren't they in many area miles away from their original business ? They are number 1 of aircraft engine, among other activities. Companies with good management can adapt their product/business, they use the revenues of their current products to invest and prepare the future, in new business area if current business is expected to decline. Kodak wasn't capable to do that, and, unfortunately, my own company, poorly managed, is following the same way

[MarkJerling]

Consider a company like General Electric. Aren't they in many area miles away from their original business ? They are number 1 of aircraft engine, among other activities. Companies with good management can adapt their product/business, they use the revenues of their current products to invest and prepare the future, in new business area if current business is expected to decline. Kodak wasn't capable to do that, and, unfortunately, my own company, poorly managed, is following the same way

Indeed. Like my 1930's GE refrigerator!

[Nicolas06]

I have been is business for myself 20+ years. My personal track record is actually pretty good.

Of course you have to know better than others, of course. Like it is uncommon to have been in business for 20 years and give you some authority other must lack.

No. Its not life. Beretta has been in business since 1526 or almost 500 years. They have been owned by the same family the entire time. Companies don't have to fail or be replaced. Companies fail because the people who run them fail. Kodak didn't have to fail. Had they made the right decisions and the right investments (products) they would still be an industry leader.

I ask you what % of people represent Beretta. Now what % of people represent companies like that accross the world?

I ask you then how sucessfull they must have been all along to be that a "small" company now? Even 5% growth each year should have make them much more powerfull than they are today. They must have screwed quite a few time, or did very average for long periods. Their merit is that they still exist and it may be because the childs prefered to continue doing the same instead of doing something different.

I own a Sony A7m2. I'm well aware of the system and I never said they were different mounts. You are making thing up as you go along.

Sorry, you said: "they would have designed the mount a little larger to accept FF"

But E mount and FE mount accept FF. They are the same mount and accept FF as you are well aware.

I didn't extrapolate anything. I quoted the statement as it was written and said that if it were true then I have even less confidence in the competency of Ricoh management. I personally don't think its true, because I don't think Ricoh is that stupid. Again you are making things up that I never said.

This is much more clear to me expressed like that. I don't trust it neither... Or more I trust it can be true that the statement was said. I don't trust the one that said it was believing what he was saying at all.

[Nicolas06]

Consider a company like General Electric. Aren't they in many area miles away from their original business ? They are number 1 of aircraft engine, among other activities. Companies with good management can adapt their product/business, they use the revenues of their current products to invest and prepare the future, in new business area if current business is expected to decline. Kodak wasn't capable to do that, and, unfortunately, my own company, poorly managed, is following the same way

Life is shorter or longer for different beings. Some trees last thousands years... We can go back see Beretta in 500 more years and General electric too... Then if they are still here, an event that has very low probability to occurs and wait another 5000 years and see if there are still in business. Be patient.

But is it a big issue if they disappear or your company disapear? People will find new job anyway and might make as well or better and may even do more interresting thing in a new structure than the old one. It might help bring novelty, new ideas etc.

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Last edited by Nicolas06; 01-11-2015 at 03:20 AM.

[Rondec]

I thought Kodak was sunk mostly by costs of retired workers -- pensions,etc, -- not so much poor decisions about technology and what thinks to make and create.

[Nicolas06]

I thought Kodak was sunk mostly by costs of retired workers -- pensions,etc, -- not so much poor decisions about technology and what thinks to make and create.

Kodak made $500 million on Q3 2014... that 2B a year, that aint that bad. They shifted to B2B service.

I wonder how much Berreta is making a year ? Didn't find the information. They explain they make 1500 guns/day. That mean 0.5 million a year. To match Kodak they would need to make 4000$ average per gun. They may sell that high or more, I don't know. They also sell clothes and gear.

My conclusion is after 500 year they still look comparable to a company like Kodak is today, maybe bigger but we are not speaking of microsoft or BP or Samsung.

[Winder]

Consider a company like General Electric. Aren't they in many area miles away from their original business ? They are number 1 of aircraft engine, among other activities. Companies with good management can adapt their product/business, they use the revenues of their current products to invest and prepare the future, in new business area if current business is expected to decline. Kodak wasn't capable to do that, and, unfortunately, my own company, poorly managed, is following the same way

GE has evolved as technology and the economy has evolved. Yes, they are miles away from where they started, but they changed with the times. I'm not a fan of GE because of how they do business. In many ways the represent everything that is wrong with the current business world.

Kodak was capable. They had the resources. If they had the leadership they would have invested in the right technologies. They should have gone from CCD to CMOS or bought Foveon or Contax. They should have invested in inkjet printing technology to compete with Epson, HP, or Canon. They had 90% of the film market and a name known around the world. They failed to leverage what they had. They failed to invest in the right technologies. They failed to put the right products on the market. There is no reason why Kodak couldn't be where Fuji is today.

IT all goes back to leadership.

[reh321]

Sony introduced the NEX line as a upgrade for the consumer P&S. Cheap lenses and really bad menus, they never intended it to evolve into a semi-professional or professional system or they would have designed the mount a little larger to accept FF. They have admitted in interviews that they have been surprised by the demand for high end E-mount products. They have pulled resources away for A-mount development because of the unexpected success of the E & FE system. Sony has missed the boat repeatedly.

Thomas Edison is well-known for his successes, but he became successful by trying lots of things and seeing which ones actually worked. In the case of the Sony NEX line, it has evolved into the A6000, which appears to be a very successful camera. I'm not sure why you think that a successful camera system has to be FF. Canikon have prominent APC-S lines, which undoubtedly make boatloads of money for them. They also have successful lines that have even smaller sensors, like the Canon SX-xx family.

[Winder]

I thought Kodak was sunk mostly by costs of retired workers -- pensions,etc, -- not so much poor decisions about technology and what thinks to make and create.

That played a role, but Kodak had always offered excellent benefits. The problem for Kodak was the switch from film to digital. Even though Kodak invented digital imaging for the consumer, they fell behind companies like Canon, Sony, & Fuji. Kodak had a revenue problem and they tied themselves to declining industries. CMOS was the future, but Kodak never made the switch.

There is the old story about Xerox and it office of the future. I'm sure everyone knows the story, but in many ways Kodak is similar. When the people from the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center came to Xerox and told them the office of the future would be paperless, xerox management said NO.

The Xerox PARC team produced the following technology: Fumbling the Future at Xerox PARC | FutureBlind
Xerox “Alto”– the first personal computer with a mouse and graphical user interface (GUI) that included windows, icons, and pull-down menus.
A WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) text editor.
Computer generated graphics.
An Ethernet local-area-network.
Laser printing.

Xerox was the office document company and management had no interest in the paperless office. Xerox disbanded the team that put all the above technologies together and failed to commercialize any of the technologies they produced. Steve Jobs would later visit the PARC team as they were being disbanded and would leave with the idea of a GUI and implement it in Apple products. Xerox had piss pour leadership. Kodak had access to a lot of technologies that they failed to commercialize. Everyone remembers all of the Kodak patent lawsuits? Kodak had patents on many technologies that they failed to commercialize.

Does Ricoh have a research team in place like PARC? Probably. Most companies in technology do. Just because they have a team doesn't mean they actually know what they are doing or where the market is headed. It doesn't mean that leadership will listen to them. Lots of highly paid business leaders and politicians make really stupid decisions on a regular basis. The idea that just because Ricoh has highly paid people working on product development is any assurance they will get it right is a joke. Everyone in the industry has people doing market research, and only a very few number of them will get it right. Maybe Ricoh will get it right, but so far they have not been real impressive.

Ken Olson CEO of Digital Equipment Corp: "There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home." 1977.
Thomas Watson, president of IBM: "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Darryl Zanuck, executive at 20th Century Fox: "Television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night."

Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft Chief Technology Officer "Apple is already dead." 1997

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO: "Let's look at the facts," he said about Google Apps. "Nobody uses those things." "Google's not a real company, it's a house of cards."

Ben Bernanke’s Greatest Hits:
2007 “the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime market seems likely to be contained.”
2008 “The GSEs are adequately capitalized,” Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee. “They are in no danger of failing.”.. They failed

In July 2008 Nobel laureate Paul Krugman wrote that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the GSEs) "didn't do any subprime lending, because they can't: the definition of a subprime loan is precisely a loan that doesn't meet the requirement, imposed by law, that Fannie and Freddie buy only mortgages issued to borrowers who made substantial down payments and carefully documented their income." (New York Times, July 18, 2008)...... But an audit of failing Fannie and Freddie showed that they had acquired $2.2 Trillion in sub-prime debt from 1997-2007. Even ignorant people can win the Nobel Prize and write for the NY Times. Ignorance seems to be a requirement actually.

I might be adding:
Jim Malcolm 2014: "the Q is THE growth engine of the future" to this list.

---------- Post added 01-11-15 at 12:33 PM ----------

I'm not sure why you think that a successful camera system has to be FF.

Did I say a successful camera system has to be FF? Can you find where I said that and link to it please?

[maleek]

Since we now know there is a dslr coming out, probably intended as a replacement for the K50, it appears there will be quite a short amount of time to announce a flagship camera with a quick release schedual. Or are they known to push fast from announncement to release for the general public? (I haven't actually given this much thought previously).

[Kunzite]

I might be adding:
Jim Malcolm 2014: "the Q is THE growth engine of the future" to this list.

You might, but from what I see he never said that; monochrome did - and you're over interpreting his words, never meant to signify that Ricoh would push K and 645 aside for the Q.

A better description is found in monochrome's post:
"He unequivocally stated Pentax is committed to the Q-mount, the K-mount and the 645-mount, and will continue to develop releases and products that leverage these mounts and keep them fresh and competitive. They see Q-mount as in its very early stages, and perhaps the best poised for true growth. They see a true Q system and Q ecology and stated there will be significant progress and technology in Q in the future."
See? No betting the future of the company on Q alone here.
But that's fine, you can add it to the list - one of those quotes, namely the Thomas Watson's one, appears to be nothing but a myth.

P.S. I would like it very much if people would stop nitpicking at a mere article, questioning Ricoh's competence because of their interpretation.

[jatrax]

Since we now know there is a dslr coming out, probably intended as a replacement for the K50, it appears there will be quite a short amount of time to announce a flagship camera with a quick release schedual. Or are they known to push fast from announncement to release for the general public? (I haven't actually given this much thought previously).

Not necessarily, they showed the camera under glass with no name or official release date. So that camera might not show in stores until next fall. In the distant past it has taken years from 'under glass' to actual product. I doubt that will happen anymore under Ricoh. I suspect we will see this camera (k-50 replacement) in May / June time frame.

They might show a k-3 replacement 'under glass' at CP+. The way k-3 prices have dropped either indicates it is selling much slower than anyone thought or is getting ready for replacement. Since recent purchasers have reported their cameras came with newest firmware that tells me they are recent production not boxes sitting on shelves, so I am betting on a k-3II shown at CP+ and maybe a late summer release.

[Kunzite]

The Plan was to announce the camera this fiscal year, they're still on track with that. And by the way, May/June is summer, not spring...

[monochrome]

You might, but from what I see he never said that; monochrome did - and you're over interpreting his words, never meant to signify that Ricoh would push K and 645 aside for the Q.

A better description is found in monochrome's post:
"He unequivocally stated Pentax is committed to the Q-mount, the K-mount and the 645-mount, and will continue to develop releases and products that leverage these mounts and keep them fresh and competitive. They see Q-mount as in its very early stages, and perhaps the best poised for true growth. They see a true Q system and Q ecology and stated there will be significant progress and technology in Q in the future."
See? No betting the future of the company on Q alone here.
But that's fine, you can add it to the list - one of those quotes, namely the Thomas Watson's one, appears to be nothing but a myth.

P.S. I would like it very much if people would stop nitpicking at a mere article, questioning Ricoh's competence because of their interpretation.

I don't get to see Winder's posts unless someone quotes.

1. The interview was 2013, not 2014
2. I wrote "Things change, but Q was viewed as a (or did I write the?) growth engine," copied and pasted the quotation from the thread, and linked to the thread.

Thank you for clearing that up.

[jatrax]

And by the way, May/June is summer, not spring...

I think that depends on where you live.................