Originally posted by Kunzite That's so completely wrong.
I expect Ricoh Imaging to have a strategy and to follow it relentlessly (of course, adapting to the ever-changing market conditions). I don't expect Ricoh Imaging to jump in all directions, as soon as the next market fad starts being rumored.
Well, I don't think remarks were
wrong as you say. First of all, users are defining the brand too, not just the legal owner, and users were literally crawling on the floor begging for years for a K-mount body DSLR in retro style. Instead, they were given the K-01 — a quirky half-product.
There is another problem too: a company like Sony and Nikon can churn out any kind of offer and see what works for them. In such a spray and pray marketing model, they can stomp on fertile ground of some other smaller camera maker too. The market has come to such a state of saturation that there are literally dozens of approaches and still a rare few not yet explored. Retro DSLR wasn't explored, and Pentax users thought Pentax could thrive there for a while (alongside the more conventional DSLR line) before others come. Pentax could grow deeper roots before the storm. That was years ago.
Now feel the storm coming and no other root system for the K-mount:
– no retro DSLR for Pentax (even APS-C) to expand the offer,
– conventional DSLR line is merely catching up,
– the K-01 project is abandoned.
– no FF either.
So you see, there was nothing wrong with that original idea, but it's wrong to call it wrong simply because the legal owner of the brand has overseen it, or is coming too late to it. What is true in Ricoh's case exactly, we'll most likely never know, but is pointless to say that the legal brand owner is always right.