Originally posted by Jeff Lopez Mistral, I read otherwise. Perar talked against K mount, saying it was kaput. Bolger and rwl are who say that a k-mount would be possible, I suggested it could be a retroed K01..
That's something else.
My point, in reaction to
IgorZ's comment ("
Interesting that many people commenting on the article think that Zenit is collaborating with Pentax...") was that only
Triplet Perar mentioned and insisted on a potential KMZ/Zenit - Ricoh/Pentax collaboration for the project of a Zenit-branded full frame mirrorless camera. Collaboration in designing and/or producing (part of) the camera.
On the other hand, the K mount is in the public domain and anybody who wished to use it for a DSLR or a mirrorless camera could do so without any collaboration (or even permission) from RIcoh Imaging.
To go a bit further:
1/ Ricoh Imaging are slow at designing new lenses, probably because of limited human and financial resources.
2/ Ricoh Imaging are currently absent from the growing market of µ4/3 - APS-C - 24x36 mirrorless cameras and lenses.
3/ Entering this market now would require a huge amount of development and marketing resources.
4/ Therefore, it could be interesting for Ricoh Imaging to team with another player interested in entering this market, so as to share development costs, bring quicker more lens to the market (in particular if they use a new mount), etc; a strategy close to that of Olympus and Panasonic for the µ4/3 mount.
But, and this is a big but (with a single t
), it's not because such strategy could be profitable that Ricoh Imaging are interested in adopting it, or even interested in the µ4/3 - APS-C - 24x36 mirrorless market, or that KMZ and Ricoh Imaging would both consider the other one as a suitable partner.
So all this is mere speculation.