Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/09/29
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hi Pascal, You make a number of valid points, but regarding this one: > I doubt it whether Canon and Nikon are willing to share their best-of-breed > digital technology with Leica, so that's no way out. In a partnership or joint venture, probably not, but what I was talking about as my long-term vision is that Leica is acquired by one of those companies. At some point Hermes will decide that the 30% stake it bought in Leica has not brought it the expected return on investment and will at that point put the stake up for sale. I suspect that this will happen sooner rather than later--because there are no synergies between Hermes bags and Leica cameras, except that both tend to be bought by somewhat affluent consumers. On the other hand, Leica would have considerable value to a mainstream camera maker because the synergies on the R&D and production side (as well as in marketing, of course) could then be exploited. Partnerships and JVs are only a stop-gap measure, and usually do not work very well. Nathan - -- Nathan Wajsman Herrliberg (ZH), Switzerland e-mail: wajsman@webshuttle.ch mobile: +41 78 732 1430 Photo-A-Week: http://www.wajsman.com/indexpaw2002.htm General photo site: http://www.wajsman.com/index.htm - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html