Hmmm. On the surface of it, this is a very good move, sure to be welcomed by H1 and H2 users. This is as it should be, and I applaud Hasselblad for the move.
If one were a little cynical, you could see this as a purely defensive play to protect the rental market, which has a huge impact not only on Hasselblads bottom line, but on its presence in the MF market.
Put yourself in she shoes of a rental studio manager for a moment.....
You have a MASSIVE investment in H series lenses, a lot of tired and ageing H1 and H2 bodies and a mix of Leaf, Phase and Hasselblad backs. You may even have some H3 and H4 "Complete camera systems" as there is some demand to rent these.
Replacing your H1 and H2 bodies with H4's doesn't work within the rental business model as all the backs need to be interchangeable with all the bodies for the business model to be effective.
Due to the ageing of your bodies, your servicing costs are skyrocketing. Your main supplier of cameras, Hasselblad, is insisting that with every replacement body you buy, you have to buy another back. This is not only cost prohibitive, but that particular back can not be used on the dozens of other bodies you have in your inventory.
At some point in time, this problem gets to a tipping point and you have a very serious problem. Your only practical solution is to pick up the phone and call your Danish friends.
Unless I've read this wrong, many rental studios hit that tipping point inside the last 12 months.
The pressure was increased exponentially by the release of the shiny new backs from Denmark. I include in this the newly-Danish backs with the little green logo. Customers want to rent these, but you can't put them on the newer Swedish cameras, only the old, tired ones.
Suddenly, that massive investment you have in superb Swedish optics, which your customers know and love, is starting to look like a liability, not an asset. Your only real alternative has for some time been the Japanese glass, now Danish controlled. The reputation of the Japanese glass, prior to Danish control, was patchy at best, so you never took it that seriously. However, when the Danes got into bed with a small German crew sailing under a flag with "Schneider" on it, the view on the horizon took on a somewhat rosier tint.....
Meanwhile back in Sweden, a new Commander-in-Cheif has just been sworn in....
Surveying the strategic map in Rental-land, he sees, finally, that his great strategy for world domination, the "Complete Camera System", is going to cost him this battle, and maybe the war.
He orders a tactical adjustment and fires his new weapon, the H4x, across the bows of the onrushing Danish armada. In the back of his mind, he is also troubled by intelligence reports that the Danes, armed with secret plans (patents) acquired from treaties with the Israelis, are preparing to deploy their own dreaded secret weapon.....
So focussed was he on this battle, he completely forgot that the great mass of loyal subjects, whose loyalty to his products actually funded his great crusade, might want to be freed of their shackles too. Suddenly, the Commander-in-cheif begins to hear mutinous mutterings from his crack units, the H3 Brigade and the H4 Commandos.
Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of THE HASSELPHASE WARS!!!!!
We live in interesting times indeed..
