[Kunzite]

Deadwood as in "deadwood products" development

[Bophoto]

Everything can happen, and it does happens very much about DSLR now.
But my point is, Canon and Nikon can cut personal because they already have
80-90% of DSLR market, so they "only" have to keep their market share.
Canikon can of course put in more personal too, and get even better cameras
in future, but it´s hard to see it can be economic for them to get at most
a few % more market share, and they don´t need it.
But if Pentax want 10-15% or perhaps more of the market,
they have to have enough personal in development and production.
K-m/K2000 is a camera that points forward, and if the replacement
for K20/200 is in the same league as K-m/2000 or even more innovative,
it shows that Pentax want more than a few % of the market.

Of course, Hoya know more than me about Pentax, but i think
that keeping the stockholders satisfied are more important
than personal for Hoya...

[Jonson PL]

Everything can happen, and it does happens very much about DSLR now.
But my point is, Canon and Nikon can cut personal because they already have
80-90% of DSLR market, so they "only" have to keep their market share.
Canikon can of course put in more personal too, and get even better cameras
in future, but it´s hard to see it can be economic for them to get at most
a few % more market share, and they don´t need it.
But if Pentax want 10-15% or perhaps more of the market,
they have to have enough personal in development and production.
K-m/K2000 is a camera that points forward, and if the replacement
for K20/200 is in the same league as K-m/2000 or even more innovative,
it shows that Pentax want more than a few % of the market.

Of course, Hoya know more than me about Pentax, but i think
that keeping the stockholders satisfied are more important
than personal for Hoya...

Pentax needs to be competitive on pricing and features. So they need to have a lean organisation.
Likely what some of the people were doing in sales and marketing; Hoya probably already have people on staff who can do that.
K20 was great, K-m a smart move, a future KD-limited would also be very welcome.
I would be very interesting in a K3 cam, but we'll see what the summer brings.

[creampuff]

Why the global recession may work in Pentax's favour...

The often mentioned grouse of the lack of Pentax product readily available on the shelves may be a blessing in disguise for the company. With the negative consumer sentiment globally to buy stuff (ignoring the Canadians running helter skelter to buy up Pentax lenses to beat the price hikes), that means that brands like Canon and Nikon that have plenty of readily available product in the shops are running headlong to the issue of fewer buyers for their products. That's money tied up in unsold stock. A somewhat simple analogy to the stockpiles of new cars that lie unsold among the auto makers.

So the staff redundancies may help Hoya reduce costs, but with less money tied up in goods sitting unsold at the retail level, that might be beneficial as less provisions need to be made on the balance sheets.

Anyway my Japanese friend is saying practically all Japanese companies are laying off workers in the light of what looks like the worst economic downturn for Japan. As an export driven economy, things don't bode well if nobody is buying.

[vinzer]

Why the global recession may work in Pentax's favour...

The often mentioned grouse of the lack of Pentax product readily available on the shelves may be a blessing in disguise for the company. With the negative consumer sentiment globally to buy stuff (ignoring the Canadians running helter skelter to buy up Pentax lenses to beat the price hikes), that means that brands like Canon and Nikon that have plenty of readily available product in the shops are running headlong to the issue of fewer buyers for their products. That's money tied up in unsold stock. A somewhat simple analogy to the stockpiles of new cars that lie unsold among the auto makers.

So the staff redundancies may help Hoya reduce costs, but with less money tied up in goods sitting unsold at the retail level, that might be beneficial as less provisions need to be made on the balance sheets.

Anyway my Japanese friend is saying practically all Japanese companies are laying off workers in the light of what looks like the worst economic downturn for Japan. As an export driven economy, things don't bode well if nobody is buying.

I agree with your idea of Pentax not having much unsold stock to deal with is a good thing for them in the short run (at least during these lean times), but the fact that the demand is not there for Pentax products should concern Hoya, if they really are that interested to garner more market share.

Of course, every company gets a free pass for holding back new products and R&D in this economic climate. You really can't fault any company, including Hoya, for not producing and developing now what we want in a future purchase.

Everything can happen, and it does happens very much about DSLR now.
But my point is, Canon and Nikon can cut personal because they already have
80-90% of DSLR market, so they "only" have to keep their market share.
Canikon can of course put in more personal too, and get even better cameras
in future, but it´s hard to see it can be economic for them to get at most
a few % more market share, and they don´t need it.
But if Pentax want 10-15% or perhaps more of the market,
they have to have enough personal in development and production.
K-m/K2000 is a camera that points forward, and if the replacement
for K20/200 is in the same league as K-m/2000 or even more innovative,
it shows that Pentax want more than a few % of the market.

Of course, Hoya know more than me about Pentax, but i think
that keeping the stockholders satisfied are more important
than personal for Hoya...

That few % market share is a big thing, especially now that more and more people are projected to buy a DSLR. Say there are 1,000,000 people who will be buying new DSLRs (let's put the recession on the shelf for now), an extra 1% buying Canon or Nikon would mean 10,000 units still. And I suspect once we get over the recession, there would be even more than 1 million new DSLR buyers.

Also, Canon and Nikon should not be taken as cooperating to corner 80-90% of the market. They are not partners, and being that they only have 40% or so of the market each, they still have much more room to grow, eating the marketshare of one another in addition to those of the companies making up the rest of the DSLR market.

[Ira]

Maybe they have some "dead meat"

Are we talking about male sexual impotence here?

Just a joke! And I think the internet is a pisser, being able to communicate with great guys from all over the world. It's just funny from time to time when someone gets an expression wrong! (It's dead WOOD, as stated above.)

My wife is Venezuelan, met her in Caracas, and she hardly spoke English when we married and she moved up with me to New York. We went to a restaurant, and she said to the waiter, "Can I have a fork, please? I need a fork." And she later said, "Thank you for the fork."

Only it didn't sound like "fork."

[aleonx3]

I think letting the sales and marketing staff go during the lean tough econmic times is proabably a strategy Hoya is using to keep the company going while keeping the shareholders happy. Noticed that they did not mention about R&D cut. I would be worrying about the survivabiilty of the company if R&D is also trimmed. As somebody mentioned that a global recession is working in Pentax favour in this case. The R&D team now has a more reasonable timeline to build the next generation of products (camera and lens) to meet the pent-up demand when the economy picks up in the future.

As for Canikon, they have a larger inventory to clear when the demand drops. Therefore the problem is magnified many times than what Hoya has to deal with in the similar situation.

[gazonk]

Are we talking about male sexual impotence here?

Just a joke! And I think the internet is a pisser, being able to communicate with great guys from all over the world. It's just funny from time to time when someone gets an expression wrong! (It's dead WOOD, as stated above.)

My wife is Venezuelan, met her in Caracas, and she hardly spoke English when we married and she moved up with me to New York. We went to a restaurant, and she said to the waiter, "Can I have a fork, please? I need a fork." And she later said, "Thank you for the fork."

Only it didn't sound like "fork."

hehe

I deliberately wrote "dead meat" inside "" because I was pretty sure I couldn't translate the expression directly like that, but I hoped the meaning would come through anyway. Just for fun I just tested what Google translate would do with this, but it just refuses to translate the expression:
Oversatt versjon av http://www.dn.no/forsiden/naringsliv/article580845.ece