[boriscleto]

Olympus has struggled with this since film days when they scrapped SLR as they had no AF system developed for it and went with P&S entirely.

Except that they did. They just didn't stick around past the first generation.

Olympus OM-707 / OM-77 - Camerapedia

[eddie1960]

Except that they did. They just didn't stick around past the first generation.

Olympus OM-707 / OM-77 - Camerapedia

Forgot about those, they are pretty rare and were a pretty dismal failure as well. I think that is why they headed down the is route. (those odd shaped zoom models) and stuck with MF OM series

the dropping of the OM manual focus lineup (late 90's) coincides quite nicely with the beginning of the big losses they hid as well

[RyanW]

Pretty sad news, the OM-D is actually a very great camera (in fact, I wished pentax made it instead of the k-01), I was hoping it would be enough to pull them out of their troubles.

I hope they are around to fill out the OM-D line. The E-M5 looks and feels a bit too design by committee, but the technology is good.

[philbaum]

this is the major issue for them most of the financial scandal comes from covering up these kinds of losses.

too bad really recently they seem to be hitting the right note, but you need to do that with profit to stay around

Sony is in deep sh*t themselves, and are struggling to return to profit

Panasonic also has had a rough time lately but is still in a position to absorb the cameras

I think there is good news about Panasonic:

Announcement of Financial Results: Panasonic Reports First-Quarter Results - Yahoo! Finance, 7/31/2012

Operating profit1 increased to 38.6 billion yen from 5.6 billion yen a year ago, while pre-tax income and net income attributable to Panasonic Corporation increased to 37.8 billion yen and 12.8 billion yen from a loss of 17.4 billion yen and a loss of 30.4 billion yen, respectively. Despite sales decline and yen appreciation, these results were due mainly to fixed cost reductions and streamlining of material costs.

Also, the company bought Sanyo in FY2012. World Wide panasonic employees declined to 327,512 at June 30,2012 from 365,899 a year before.

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Last edited by philbaum; 08-13-2012 at 11:31 AM.

[RyanW]

JVC,Sanyo, how about GPX, Sansui, Kenwood, Pioneer, Jensen. Are there any other popular consumer electronics companies that we can think of? Fun trip down memory lane.

I wonder if GE might be a suitor for Olympus' medical imaging, or Canon for that matter.

[eddie1960]

jvc and kenwood are the same company,jensen is just a brand name for audiovox now, Sansui hasn't actually made anything in over a decade (just a brand umbrella now)
Pioneer has had their struggles as well. they now make their tvs from others panels they stopped production of tv in 2010
the CE graveyard is littered with brands now days

[RyanW]

the CE graveyard is littered with brands now days

You are correct. I own a Polaroid DVD player, I've seen Zenith on many things Zenith the company never made. Sylvania, is mostly still used on televisions.