Originally posted by sandilands ... Frankly years of neglect have left Pentax as a marginal player with only limited success in some niche markets and their installed base.
Thank you, 18-month plan.
Quote: Copying Nikon and Canon will get them nowhere. Innovation and quality optics will.
Barring a very significant technological breakthrough that only Ricoh/Pentax is privy to, they will still basically need to play in the same space, with about the same level of technology. You say 'copy', but isn't the K-5 a 'copy' of the D7000, and vise-versa, effectively? They are doing in the aps-c space what you don't think they should do in the FF space. ('copy' is also used as a bad word for 'compete'.)
Quote: A possible positioning strategy for the Ricoh- Pentax Imaging Company would be to place the Pentax brand at the high end and specialty markets (underwater, 645, etc.). Use the Ricoh brand for P&S, ILC, entry level DSLR, and as an interesting idea, a test bed for innovative technology. In this scenario I could see the introduction of a full frame pro level camera, but it certainly shouldn't be their highest priority. They have more significant competitive gaps than carving out market share in the very small Canon 5DmkII space.
You're basically saying that it's easier to innovate and compete in the aps-c tier. It's not. Pentax competes in aps-c DSLR with more players, and with the encroachment of mirrorless, even more, now. Companies like Fuji, Panasonic, Samsung are going to almost be able to squeeze the lower-end aps-c DSLR out of existance.
Quote: My advice (for what it is worth) to Ricoh-Pentax is to impress the market (like Sony has) with breakthrough quality improvements of the optical path in the larger APS-C market. The K5 is an excellent platform for this strategy. Their R&D dollars (or Yen) will be best spent on industry leading resolution, noise reduction, low light autofocus, and K-mount lenses. Maybe at some time in the future, FF will be their biggest competitive disadvantage. I hope they can survive until it is.
This ^^ is another 18-month plan - basically wait, wait, until an obvious/easy decision presents itself. By the time that path becomes easy, anyone can take it, and you have just left yourself in the middle of (or behind) the pack... again.
One of my worries is this -
what would Ricoh's incentive be to invest a lot in a tier that's being entered by an invasive technology (mirrorless) being delivered by increasingly aggressive and competent players (Fuji, Samsung, Panasonic, even Oly.)
A Pentax DSLR doesn't have the big three to compete against, they have the big three
plus everyone else who can make a DSLR, SLT or mirrorless camera and a set of lenses.
If Ricoh tries to enter mirrorless in a big way, they may find that retaining K-mount is a drawback, because it keeps their kits large and unwieldy compared to the other mirrorless players. Thus, they drop the K-mount idea for their new mirrorless bodies.
While this is happening, sensor costs decrease and wafer yields increase, making the $1500 sweet spot margin-freindly for a FF body - thus squeezing aps-c DSLR from the top, also.
The truly size-conscious folks are buying these new mirrorless bodies with advanced EVFs and blazing-fast on-sensor PDAF. At some point, Pentax's 5% of a shrinking aps-c DSLR market starts looking anemic to Ricoh. And if they have no FF K-mount sales, because they chose not to go that route back in 2012... Maybe goodbye, K-mount.
If K-mount is the major asset Ricoh purchased here, and it is, they won't let it die on the vine. An 18-month ROI is not required by them.
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