Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/09/19
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Pascal, > And as I am hearing from an undisclosed source about serious internal > problems at Leica Solms, coupled with substantial operating losses, we > might expect something to happen in the not too-far-off future. I guess > we might see Kyocera stepping in, and a scenario =E0 la Contax. It's no= t > something I would hope for, as I rather like the fact that Leica is sti= ll > European-owned, and would hate to pay those steep prices for something > that is Japanese. I am not personally bothered by the possibility that someone might acquir= e Leica. And if that someone is Kyocera, that would be just fine. After all= , Contax are excellent cameras and I have a Kyocera laser printer which is = also of much higher quality than the comparable Canon, HP or Brother offerings. I= f Leica is indeed financially ailing, then surely from our point of view it would= be preferable for the company to be acquired by someone who is likely to wan= t to preserve the value and the brand and who has access to financial resource= s well beyond Leica's current possibilities. In today's world, the nationality o= f the ownership does not matter much; among US motorcyclists there is sometimes= a discussion about which brand is truly "American". It turns out that of al= l the motorcycles on the US market, the one with probably the most US content i= s the Honda Gold Wing (built in Ohio). Similarly, I do not think that Rolls Roy= ce will become any less British now that it is German-owned. The Britishness of R= R is part of the value of the brand, just as "German engineering" is a signifi= cant part of the Leica brand. I am sure any new owner would want to preserve t= hat. Nathan - -- Nathan Wajsman Overijse, Belgium Photography page: http://members.tripod.com/~belgiangator/index.html Motorcycle page: http://www.geocities.com/motorcity/downs/1704/index.htm= l