KM Brand is dead?

UserRemoved

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18 Jan 2006 - 10:42 PM

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KM announced today that they're stopping digital camera production (from March) because the margins are too tight. The DSLR business will be passed over to Sony. What happens to the new KM SLRs in the pipeline seems unclear - I guess they get badged Sony. Maybe it doesn't make any difference really to KM users. Maybe the biggest downer is for Nikon. Their CCD maker is now in direct competition with them - bad situation.

Marlin_owner

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18 Jan 2006 - 11:14 PM

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Sony signed a deal with KM last year to share technology. With Sony being such a major player in the electronics market, this is a natural progression.

It should mean the KM/Sony brand being a major player along with Canon & Nikon.

Westers

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18 Jan 2006 - 11:25 PM

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I doubt it'll impact Nikon. The manufacture of CCD's and the camera division will be seperate business units in Sony and almost competitors themselves.

It happens all the time - in the computing world IBM used to supply Hitachi the chipsets for their mainframes, the same chipsets that went into IBM mainframes. It wasn't a big deal because the chipset (or CCD in this case) was useless without a good design to make use of it. That's where the real value and difference is to be found.

mattw (e2 Member)

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19 Jan 2006 - 12:37 AM

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Comming just days after a 'Samsung' badged Pentax......

Mattw

franken (e2 Member)

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19 Jan 2006 - 1:15 AM

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Has there been any mention of what will happen to their film scanners?

Ken

Carabosse (e2 Member)

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19 Jan 2006 - 1:29 AM

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I always thought no good would come of the merger of Minolta with 'budget brand' Konica. :-(

However, it is high time Sony brought out a DSLR. They were amongst the first in the field of digital photography. So it's good news on that front.

franken (e2 Member)

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19 Jan 2006 - 2:05 AM

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Pentax have recently announced that they are working with Samsung.
Samsung are about to release a digital slr with the Pentax lens mount.

Ken

mdpontin

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19 Jan 2006 - 2:13 AM

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The writing has been on the wall for some time. Like CB, I wasn't entirely comfortable with the merger between Konica and Minolta (which, according to some accounts, didn't go altogether smoothly in any case), and I think Minolta's financial problems (and the subsequent merger) were among the leading reasons for the delay in bringing a digital SLR to market.

That the products they did eventually release were as good as they were seemed like a positive sign - Minolta's traditional combination of innovation, attention to detail and build quality - but the ongoing restructuring plans gave a clear picture that all was still far from well.

Another mistake (in my opinion) was the dilution of the "Minolta" brand by adopting the relatively clumsy "Konica Minolta" name in its place.

When the agreement with Sony was announced last year, I felt that there was a strong possibility that Sony might eventually take the lead - at the least - in camera production, so today's news that KM are bowing out and that Sony will be producing all future Dynax-system SLRs is not entirely surprising. Sony now have an existing user base to build on, which, if they can bring out competitive products in a timely fashion should mean that there's hope for the Dynax system yet.

At least existing users, such as myself, aren't to be left completely stranded. However, it does raise as many questions as it answers, not the least being, "Can Sony deliver enough to avoid haemorrhaging users/customers?"

Fortunately, I'm not in the market for a new camera at present, having only bought my Dynax 7D just over a year ago. When the time comes to replace it though, I'll have to do some careful thinking.

Doug