[Leica] RE: OT: A little history

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

At 12:25 AM +0100 1/26/05, animal wrote:
>I have to disagree,from what i was taught in university ,order of 
>magnitude steps in computing are roughly 6 years apart.The 
>improvements consumers can buy in that period are carefully fed in 
>to the market to maximise profits.
>best regards
>simon jessurun
>amsterdam
>the netherlands
>
>>Having spent the majority of my life working for technology 
>>manufacturing companies, I can assure you that this is absolutely 
>>untrue.
>>
>>While there may be industries in which there is planned 
>>obsolescence, the computer industry is not one of them.
>>
>>The issue in the computer industry is that the engineers keep 
>>coming up with new stuff that is very much better than what existed 
>>a year ago. If you don't sell it, then your competitors will. If 
>>you don't innovate, you go out of business. Relentless innovation 
>>leaves a trail of obsolete devices, but if you start feeling sorry 
>>for the people who have to buy new ones, and slow down a little, 
>>they'll just buy from your competitors.
>>
>>In fact, quite the opposite is true. Development in the technology 
>>industry is in general hindered by a desire to be compatible with 
>>the past. If the hardware and software companies didn't worry about 
>>compatibility with the past, they could probably innovate 20% 
>>faster than they are doing now.
>>
>>No one is forcing you to buy newer faster better cameras and 
>>computers. As many people have said here, a 2.1 megapixel camera 
>>still takes great pictures. So why are camera companies racing to 
>>make and sell cameras with more megapixels? Because people will buy 
>>them. People want them. This isn't a conspiracy, it's just market 
>>demand at work.
>>
>>
>>
>>>I believe one of the basic premises of contemporary
>>>technology development is the concept of "planned
>>>obsolescence," with the deliberate goal of encouraging
>>>consumers to buy new tools on a regular basis, in
>>>lock-step with the constantly increasing profit motive
>>>of the manufacturers.


'Order of magnitude' improvements are much greater than what people 
are willing to upgrade for. People are willing to upgrade from 3 to 
5Mp cameras, and 5 to 8Mp cameras again. These represent less than 
30% increases in resolution. Even going from 4 to 16Mp only 
represents a 100% increase in resolution, and almost everyone who has 
used digital cameras would jump at the chance to upgrade from 4 to 
16Mp if there were no downsides to the upgrade and the cost of the 
new camera were no more than the old when it was new.

Order of magnitude improvements, ie from say 640x480 (0.3Mp) to 
6400x4800 (30Mp) is a lot more than what it takes to get people to 
upgrade. If a company had nothing new in 6 years, and was still 
trying to sell a 0.3Mp camera during all that time, it would not only 
be out of business, but people would hardly be able to remember the 
name.

The present rate of improvement is great enough that the increments 
that are possible, and thus marketable, occur often enough that 
companies have to get them out there ASAP to stay in business.

'Planned obsolescence' just doesn't enter into it. Products might not 
be engineered to last decades, because it is just inconceivable that 
a product (talking about digital cameras) marketed today will still 
be at all desirable to use in a couple of decades. Some products, 
which are expected to receive rough use are engineered to take it, 
while those products, such as P&S cameras, are engineered to a lower 
durability standard because it is anticipated that by the time the 
item is worn out nobody would be interested in using it anymore 
anyway.

I believe that is a correct approach. Until we have a 'mature' and 
stabile digital product, what's the point in building it to the 
standard of a Leica M in terms of total life expectancy? We are _far_ 
from having any 'mature' digital systems.

-- 
    *            Henning J. Wulff
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