Business and Photography

Now would be an interesting time to be in business school, as there're so many good "topics" which you could write about relating to photography.

-Blackstone acquiring 44% of Leica.

-Sony and Nikon production in Thailand halting due to flooding (half a year after one of Nikon's Japan manufacturing sites was hit by the earthquake.

-Canon releasing a new Professional DSLR before Nikon, as they have "tit-for-tatted" each other business-wise for so many decades.

-Nikon releasing their strange new mirrorless interchangeable lens system a few months after Pentax released theirs (the Q)... and of course, the imaging sector of Pentx being bought out by Ricoh just after the release of the Pentax Q. Ricoh, themselves, having a strange "interchangeable sensor and lens mount" thing going on.

-Kodak looking at bankruptcy.

-The first non-Japanese CEO of Olympus lasted only 6 months. He was kind of fired a few days ago and told to "get a bus to the airport," or something to that extent. Apparently he didn't get along with everybody else (it's said to be differences in culture and business decisions). A few days after leaving the company, he outed the company for some of its bad business decisions and share-price dropped 23% in a day. The next day, he followed with more comments, and the share price dropped another 8%. He welcomed Olympus to try suing him.
(Rounded up news in order: 1, 2, 3, 4)

My (abridged)opinion of Olympus is that they have excellent engineering, design and production teams, but their management, accounting/finance, and marketing departments are, to say the least, lacking.
CEO news aside, their newest products (the 3 pens) are excellent products and good prices. However, every shop still is overstocked with the 1st and 2nd generation at similar prices, so they are, I assume, unenthusiastic about the new products. I think this is mostly due to marketing. Think about it: why does everyone assume that if they want to "get into photography" they need a Nikon or Canon DSLR? Why do those who are too intimidated by the big black DSLRs, but want something serious, go for the Sony NEX cameras? Which, when measured by features, image/build quality, lens choice, price, availability and whatnot are quite similar.
Maybe the same reason the Nikon EM failed 30 years ago. "Hey girls, do you wanna play with a big-boy camera, but you aren't smart enough?" Great marketing line (my rough interpretation.) If you market it that way, no men will want to buy it, and girls will be too insulted to buy it (though somehow Sony has convinced people that the girly NEX is perfect for everybody.)

Also, this is mostly just what I see in Japan. And by the way, I love my Nikon EM, and my Olympus EP3.

In the business world of cameras, it is, indeed, an interesting time.