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Re: [OM] Oly Imaging Group still not doing so hot

Subject: Re: [OM] Oly Imaging Group still not doing so hot
From: Ken Norton <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 13 May 2014 09:04:33 -0500
> They are beyond help. As the article points out at the end, the only 
> plausible outcome is the sale of the business to someone else, a la Pentax.

"I agree with Nathan" T-Shirt being worn today.

I felt that the financial shenanigans was an excuse for the imaging
division. There are deeper issues in play. I've not held back about my
criticism of product management and marketing of the past decade.
There was about a five year period of time which it had all the
appearances of a blatant attempt at self-destruction. I've even gone
so far as to say that it has the appearance of the product management
and marketing being on the payroll of Canon. I'm not at all convinced
that they weren't. Either they were totally incompetent or being payed
off. A certain president of Olympus was cleaning house when he himself
got canned. Unfortunately, he didn't get six more months of
axe-swinging as he obviously missed a few people that needed chopping.
I won't mention Olympus America.

I don't want to go down that dark alley, though. I think a lot of
people would rather be positive and look forward and not really want
to know why Olympus self-destructed. I'm not going to put my
hair-shirt on, but will leave the IAWN shirt on for now.

Last year, I went to work for a company that was three times larger.
Not only that, but this company had many decades of history. The
"overhead" factor on everything got really, really bad. So bad, in
fact, that to plug in a simple $200 SFP into a device had a
back-office labor cost of $6000. Looking at Olympus' overhead costs, I
suspect that they have gotten themselves into a situation where there
are far too many processes and people flying desks in that company.
Unlike American companies, which reorganize as often as my wife does
the clothes closet, a Japanese company tends to keep building on what
is there, not replacing it. Very surprising, because in the world of
manufacturing, they do extremely well at reinventing and perfecting,
but in the back-office, they don't.

I'm not likely to buy an Olympus m43 camera not because of any of the
above, but because I'm not really interested in a crop-sensor camera.
At least of that small of a sensor. I think that all of the Japanese
camera manufacturers are hurting financially and can find reason to
question the long-term viability of any of them. It's pretty much a
guarantee that whatever it is that I buy will end up getting orphaned
in short order. So just buy what you want and don't worry about it. I
really, really like the E-M1 and would be quite satisfied with it. But
I would have to buy it with the attitude that "this is it" and "get
everything you need/want up front because there is no promise of
anything more".


-- 
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
-- 
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