Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Cameras, Lenses and Shooting gear => Topic started by: aaykay on July 01, 2011, 06:50:12 am

Title: Hoya sells Pentax to Ricoh
Post by: aaykay on July 01, 2011, 06:50:12 am
A view that Hoya wanted to off-load the DSLR arm of Pentax, has been brewing for a while, and finally the shoe seems to have dropped:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/1107/11070105ricohbuyspentax.asp

Title: Re: Hoya sells Pentax to Ricoh
Post by: Rob C on July 01, 2011, 04:00:47 pm
A view that Hoya wanted to off-load the DSLR arm of Pentax, has been brewing for a while, and finally the shoe seems to have dropped:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/1107/11070105ricohbuyspentax.asp




Quite a shift from the days when  the Spotmatic was considered a great camera, used by lots of pros, and the Ricoh brand amateur's province and not in the same club.

Oh well...

Rob C
Title: Re: Hoya sells Pentax to Ricoh
Post by: BernardLanguillier on July 01, 2011, 06:29:14 pm

Quite a shift from the days when  the Spotmatic was considered a great camera, used by lots of pros, and the Ricoh brand amateur's province and not in the same club.

Do you know of any example where high end bought low end? :)

Cheers,
Bernard
Title: Re: Hoya sells Pentax to Ricoh
Post by: deejjjaaaa on July 03, 2011, 02:38:37 am
Do you know of any example where high end bought low end? :)

Porshe / VW, albeit not exactly identical...  CISCO buying Linksys and so many other in IT hw/sw world
Title: Re: Hoya sells Pentax to Ricoh
Post by: PierreVandevenne on July 03, 2011, 04:58:34 am
FWIW, Porsche failed in its VW takeover attempt. And here is where they should, in theory, go in the future.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703567304575628602671192406.html

But that's an incredibly complex situation, bot both companies owning, at one time or another part of the other or of the controlling arm of the other, a special law that protects the state of Saxony, paper profits that can't be realized, tax liabilities, etc...

In any case, Ricoh + Pentax is potentially more interesting for Pentax users than Hoya + Pentax. Before this I was really tempted to move to Pentax (a bit tired of my Canon gear) based on the current model line up. It will be interesting to watch the direction they will take. Leaning more towards the average consumer market or bringing fresh ideas to the prosumer market?
Title: Re: Hoya sells Pentax to Ricoh
Post by: Rob C on July 03, 2011, 12:07:56 pm
Do you know of any example where high end bought low end? :)

Cheers,
Bernard





Never thought about it, Bernard; the only one that surprised me in the upmarket/downmarket thing was Mercedes lowering its own image values in a search for market share in a world it wasn't in - maybe that rarified atmosphere is really pretty thin on returns, too, for all we know, and they felt they had no choice... I don't think Chrysler did them any favours either.


In photography? Yes, Getty bought some crappy micro...

Appearances etc. - tough world out there.

Rob C
Title: Re: Hoya sells Pentax to Ricoh
Post by: BernardLanguillier on July 04, 2011, 10:57:10 am
Porshe / VW, albeit not exactly identical...  CISCO buying Linksys and so many other in IT hw/sw world

Porsche tried but failed... Cisco OK, but did the money come from their high end product lines?...

Cheers,
Bernard