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Re: [OM] OT: Speaking of Nostalgia...

Subject: Re: [OM] OT: Speaking of Nostalgia...
From: Ken Norton <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2017 15:37:17 -0500
>      At this point I recall how Pentax made prudent decisions in their 
> product development.  They incorporated AF lenses into their cameras without 
> changing the mounting flange, instead they buried the AF electrical contacts 
> into the existing flange.  When digital came around they simply made a 
> digital body that mated to their earlier film AF lenses.  I don't know if 
> there was any foresight involved, but it did make the transition seamless.


Sometimes, having a very limited engineering budget helps you from
making stupid decisions. Olympus could have put a ton of money into
making awesome digital camera or put a ton of money into making an
entirely new line of lenses. They chose to spend a half ton doing both
and came up short on both. Canon put a ton of money into making
awesome digital cameras and did only what they needed to on the lens
front. Once the cameras reached engineering equilibrium, they went
back to focusing on lenses.

And then Olympus repeated the same mistake all over again by totally
dumping Four-Thirds and the entire lens investment and went to Micro
Four-Thirds. In the end, it has turned out "OK" for them, but Olympus
has an unique way of taking a jackhammer to their own efforts and
killing success before it has a chance to be successful.

The underlying problem is that they were given the chance to spend too
much money on something new that would put them behind the competition
when they needed to be at least on equal footing with the competition.
Doing what they did would have only made sense if they were ahead of
the development curve of the competition and would have been
disruptive to the industry. They weren't with Four-Thirds. They were
with Micro Four Thirds, but spent far too much to establish market
dominance that was fleeting. All they did was buy a few more years of
existence. Micro Four Thirds will be replaced in another couple of
years with something all new.  Again.

Of course, after the autofocus lawsuit, Olympus packed it in on the OM
line and lost over 10 years of momentum, engineering development, and
patents that were crucial when they went down the Four-Thirds
rabbit-hole.

AG Schnozz
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