Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/10/13
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> Better luck next time, Doctor. > > Best, > > Aaron > > P.S. OKAY, OKAY, I had a little too much spare time on my > hands. What can I > say, I can't read Japanese and I was a little bored. THE DOCTOR RESPONDS - (and should have his head examined for so doing ;-) )... In the first place, Dr. Blacktape was responding to an apparent PC lover who commented that it wouldn't make any difference to Apple users if Apple went under because, after all, if the Dr. may paraphrase Gertrude Stein here, a computer is a computer is a computer. The Dr. was simply making the point that if Apple went under a unique product would disappear from the market, forcing its users to make radical changes in the way they do their computing. The Dr. is not suggesting either that Leica should go under, or that he would not be distressed to see it go under. But...if Leica were to go under, the Dr. believes that the M is so inherently reliable - and has no need to be updated - that there is probably a sufficient stock of spare parts around to keep M users functioning well into the next Millenium. Yes, the lenses will remain optically superb. And, yes, with or without any nomes in Solms, M users will continue to use Ms and make outstanding photos with them. Further, Dr. Blacktape would make the heretical prediction that if there isn't a major attitude change in the management of Leica a decade from now there will be no M as we know it today. There may be a modern hybrid, or a Japanese "rangefinder" with a Leica badge, but the "classic" M will no longer be an item in the Leica catalogue. At least not unless the user base grows - which, as some one indirectly suggested earlier, may happen with the introduction of related - I won't say similar - cameras and lens into the market that has hither to been entirely dominated by reflexes, and automated ones at that. But the Dr. too obviously has too much time, and too little knowledge of Japanese - actually, the Dr. doesn't have too much time, he just isn't paying enough attention to his day job - ;-)