Actually when you think about it, that is kind of worrisome. Oly should
have had an 8 or 10MP E-1 replacement now to stay competitive. Does Oly
need an aggressive competitor like Panasonic? It is likely to be the
same camera with two different logos. If it is a compelling camera Oly
is likely to sell half as many as it would. It may be even worse if
Panasonic produces its own lenses with the cachet of the Leica brand on
them. It may come down to who can sell the camera on the smallest
margin. Kind of like the Apple licensing disaster of some years ago.
There have also been predictions that the DSLR market will be slowing
down by 2006-2007, not the rosy prediction of the announcement. It will
change from a market with large numbers of people switching from
perfectly functioning film cameras to digital. Once that slows it will
be a digital replacement market. Much slower even with continuing
digital development. If so, competition is likely to be fierce and Oly,
instead of being comfortably in a distant third place, may be fighting
hard for that spot. Companies with other more profitable businesses may
just get out of camera equipment which we have already seen with
Kyocera.
Winsor
Long Beach, California, USA
http://homepage.mac.com/wincros/PhotoAlbum3.html
On Apr 1, 2005, at 8:54 PM, R.Jackson wrote:
>
> http://www.dpreview.com/news/0504/05040102matshushita_dslr.asp
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