I've been trying REALLY hard to right the wrongs of my previous
attitude toward Olympus. Anybody who has hung around me the last few
years knows that I've carved Olympus management open more than a few
times going back before the billion dollar fraud became public. Their
product and marketing mismanagement is the stuff that MBA programs
study for how NOT to do things. Khen won't even talk to me anymore,
took his marbles and went to play in another sandbox.
So, I've taken the attitude to either not talk about Olympus or try to
give them the benefit of the doubt at all costs. Just maybe they
really do have their act together and I'm misled because the USA is no
longer a market they even want to be in. I can understand that. The
USA is just a backwater, third-world country now, so it only makes
sense to put the efforts elsewhere.
My last sentence was a little tongue in cheek, but not by much. I'm
smart enough to know that it only makes sense to focus limited
resources to areas where you can reap the greatest benefit. Olympus
kissed off the North America region a couple decades ago, allowing the
competition to have free play. It's too hard and costly to try to
reactivate a sales and distribution network that you long ago
destroyed. I doubt anybody, but Woodford, really understood the level
of destruction that Olympus America caused the company.
So, here we are with the OM-D. Olympus has gotten an INCREDIBLE amount
of good press over this camera for good reason. Tons of photographers
are buying them. Or maybe it's just a narrow demographic of
photographers that are buying them. Those who do buy the OM-D are very
vocal about it. Just like we were vocal about the E-1. If the amount
of Internet verbage about a camera matched the overall sales, Olympus
would be bigger than Sony and Canon combined.
So, I've sat quietly waiting for the financial reports to come out
covering the period of time in which the OM-D has been available. I
was really hoping to see a nice sales bump, but it's not there. It's
up in some regions, but down in others. Overall, the imaging division
has declined year over year and quarter over quarter for as long back
as the financial reports cover. Even with a hit camera, Olympus is
still failing.
This does not bode well for the imaging division. Even a hit camera is
unable to overcome issues in the sales and marketing side of the
business. I'm at a loss as to how it would ever be possible to bring
the imaging division back.
> Who's to say that the OM-D is as successful as Ken surmises? It is popular
> with several members of this group, but is it so with the wider,
> less-discerning public?
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
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