Originally posted by lesmore49 I've had Pentax SLR cameras (and others, including Leica and Mamiya medium format) for over 40 years, used to work in the publishing field and years ago I earned my bread through photography...I wouldn't say I was naive or not aware of corporate manipulations.
In fact it appears to me that you are cynical without any real reason. It would be the height of naivete to expect any high ranking executive in a casual interview to lay out detailed plans about future company direction and products as you apparently would wish Ned to trot out.
There will be new products...of that I'm sure and when the time comes to introduce them to the consumer market, you can rest assured that they will...using a carefully planned and orchestrated campaign.
Remember the K7 intro ?
I don't want to start trolling, so it will be my last post in this thread. I don't feel particularly cynical here. What I want to say it that there are simply no valuable information here. I'm certainly not saying that Pentax is doomed (I'm not part of that Pentaxian tribe) but what said Ned is simply :
"Colored Pentax K-x is selling well, so expect to see more colors.
Hoya is expecting Pentax to be profitable and to finance its development." (Surprise !)
I don't see any other information in the message passed by him. The thing about not focusing on market share is small player speech. Nothing specific to Pentax, and it don't reveal anything on their focus (whether it is margin, market share on specific markets etc...)
And I don't image as well Pentax saying that they will concentrate on doing expensive crap. (to paraphrase your conclusion)
Now regarding what Ned could have given us as appetizer, he could have mentioned how much new cameras we would expect for 2010, how much new lenses. And we could get an update on Pentax commercial strategy in the US as he said in previous interviews that he would concentrate on web distribution.
I'm sorry if I looked so aggressive, but I hear the language used in this interview all day. And that adds up to the people saying that Pentax is doomed or on contrary that they are doing more than great from reading between the lines of such article. My point is that such speach is clearly designed to hold no message.
I sincerely doubt that anybody outside Hoya executives have a clear picture of Pentax future. If Hoya have any plan to sell Pentax, then it would be negotiated at very high level (Ned wouldn't be aware) and no info would leak before the details have been set. Before that everything shall work as business as usual.
On contrary of many pentaxians here, I believe that Hoya is taking Pentax seriously and have manage the company quite well since the takeover. Part of this good management is to deliver few information prior to actual release date of the products. However the world economy is in a very bad shape and will continue so in the next years, so Hoya may have to take some decisions on Pentax regardless of Pentax evolution compared to the competition. I hope that makes my opinion clearer.
Guillaume