[Leica] I hope you're right!

["Kotsinadelis, Peter (Peter)" <peterk@lucent.com>]

Guy,

I hope you are right.  You certainly make a good point.  If Leica can stay
profitable on high quality products that would be wonderful.  Hopefully they
will not go the way of Zeiss-Ikon, Voigtlander, and other high quality
manufacturers who tried the same.

Peter K

- -----Original Message-----
From: Guy Bennett [mailto:guybnt@idt.net]
Sent: Monday, June 07, 1999 12:47 PM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: RE: [Leica] Canon really has AF figured out...BLASHPEMY? Or it
i s?


peter,

perhaps they will never have a large piece of the pie. perhaps they will
remain a small company that produces and sells a high quality product at a
high price to a small group of consumers. i'm sure that the morgan car
company - to revert to the dreaded auto (no pun intended) analogy - cannont
compete with honda and toyota in volume sales, but maybe it is not their
goal to do so. i'd like to think that it is possible to run a company that
makes enough money to sustain itself and whose chief goal is to produce a
high quality, thus highly desirable product, which is entirely different
from a company whose main objective is to produce income.

guy

>You have a good point.  So it may seem reasonble that two markets will do.
>The only question that comes to mind is, which one is actually the money
>maker?  I would imagine one must provide the lion's share of the income for
>the company so it can sustain the other.  If this were the case, it makes
>sense. But if you then apply that to Leica, they would then need something
>as was discussed earlier like Leica lens mfg. for other cameras and perhaps
>a Minolta AF body to get into that larger piece of the pie to sustain the M
>camera line.  Nothing lasts forever, although in time my M3 may change that
>saying . . . . . . .
>
>Peter K