Mark C. wrote: I wonder WHY Ricoh purchased Pentax..... The cachet of the Pentax brand? It was already pretty tarnished in the overall marketplace in 2011 when the deal took place... The huge market share of loyal Pentax users... like us? If so, they did little hold onto that base... To provide a brand and platform for kick ass new cameras... All we've gotten so far are incremental improvements in the 2010 Pentax line up, while the competition kicks out innovative products.... Maybe Pentax has some patents that Ricoh wanted, or perhaps they sought secret journals of Takuma Kajiware...
>From the outside it looked like Ricoh bought Pentax and neither invested in it or scrapped it. It's like buying a house and neither moving in nor flipping it, but just letting it sit empty. I think that the name change must signify something simply because Corporations don't overcome inertia and do something, though it could be a petty or trial reason. If the name change means that Ricoh gave the old Pentax management two years to get their act together and time's up and Ricoh is coming in and starting to move things... that would be good news. Somehow I am not getting my hopes up. ---------------------- Hi Mark, I can't disagree with your analysis because it parallels mine. I can't envision Ricoh making a major acquisition and then not exercising control for two years. Maybe Ricoh didn't have a clear vision of where they were going -or- Maybe market conditions, etc., have changed and Ricoh is adjusting their stance, While I feel it hard for Pentax to be considered seriously w/o a FF 24x36 system (for Paul... smile), I also feel it hard for them to turn that into a large profit, given where they've positioned themselves as a bargain brand. Tom C. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
