RE: [Leica] Lieca & Minolta - A perfect marriage?

[Jim Laurel <jplaurel@microsoft.com>]

Such a liason would, to me, be similar to the Contax/Kyocera alliance that
has resulted in the current line of Contax cameras.  I don't have very much
visibility into the internal workings of this partnership, but it looked
like early Contax (the "new" Contax, that is) marketing was driven from the
Yashica hierarchy, Kyocera's consumer camera division.  Is that right?  If
so, you could say that, although neither Zeiss nor Yashica was a marketing
powerhouse at the start of the arrangement, they have certainly done a
decent job of it since then.  Perhaps one day we'll see a new incarnation of
Leica, similar to what Zeiss and Kyocera did back in the 70s.  Leica focuses
on thier core competency (optics), and the other (presumably Japanese)
partner would focus on thier core competency, electronics.

Before you pull out your flamethrowers, I'm not necessarily advicating this
approach.  I'm just saying that it seems a reasonable proposition.  Can you
imagine an all-new, high-tech, professional-grade SLR system with a lens
mount that can accomodate current R lenses as well as a new Leica AF line?

- -----Original Message-----
From: Bernard [mailto:5521.g23@g23.relcom.ru]
Sent: Monday, August 16, 1999 11:10 AM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: Re: [Leica] Lieca & Minolta - A perfect marriage

The result may be great, technically, but many technically great product
have failed on the market. Marketing is the problem I see with this
Leica-Minolta team. Leica SLRs are still being accused of being
overpriced Minoltas. And let's be fair; Minolta is the last of the
Japanese Big Three. Minolta is not a "pro's choice" in the people's
mind, and when you look at the statistics, it's not only in the people's
minds. Compared to brands like Leica, Hasselblad, Linhof, Sinar et al,
Minolta is a "cheapo-brand".

This is not to say anything against Minolta, but they are positioned in
a totally different market segment than Leica.

B