>I have another theory. Maybe Pentax was trying to collect our opinions over
>the last few years in order to finalize their MZ-S (the name is not
>important) features. Now they have collected enough information (they think)
>and the MZ-S is about ready. In order to cut down the cost, they have
>decided to drop the list and let someone else to run it. That means from now
>on, what we said was less important that we used to be. Just a guess.
Here's another think, more based in the reality of the camera industry:
Once upon a time, the American market was the be-all and end-all of the
Japanese camera companies, and everything we wanted, they fell over
themselves to make. Now, the American market is relatively less important
than the world market and the home (Japanese) market, and it's relatively
unaffected by corporate responsiveness anyway, PLUS the SLR market has
become only a tiny fraction of the parent company's camera profit picture.
Upshot? They just don't listen to us, period. They don't need to. Japanese
companies haven't been heeling to the beck and call of the American consumer
for some time now. Our day is done.
In fact, from inside the industry, what you often hear is that the Japanese
home offices of the camera companies don't even listen very well to the
American distributorships--and often don't tell them very much about what's
going on. Chance are, Pentax USA isn't very well informed about what Pentax
Japan is doing, Pentax Japan doesn't much give a fig what Pentax USA thinks,
and "our" opinion isn't worth a hill of beans to either one of them.
I don't think it matters much whether Pentax USA is, or is not, "listening"
to our alleged collective wisdom. Difficult though it may be for us to adapt
to this fact, this is not the 1960s, and we simply aren't important any more
to a Japanese company's financial health.
Here's a vivid example of what I mean: a couple of years ago, I got a Kodak
company insider to admit to me that, for a 5-year period, Kodak had
essentially "forgotten" about what it calls the "AdAm" market--advanced
amateurs. It was marketing to far larger and more important markets, such as
grandmothers and "tween" girls, but it had become largely inconsequential to
them that photography enthusiasts also buy photographic materials. We're
such a tiny group relatively speaking that we just don't matter much to the
company. (Incidentally, when it "remembered" about us, Kodak responded by
starting to market a slick, expensive captive newsletter called "ViewFinder"
as an "alternative" to advertising in enthusiast magazines. Big whoop.)
Japan stopped making cameras primarily for the American market some time
ago. What its home market thinks of new products is now far more important
to any Japanese company than what we think. We should wake up and get used
to that fact. Our opinion really doesn't matter one way or the other. It's
hubristic and somewhat ludicrous--not to mention outdated--for us to believe
that it does.
--Mike
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