Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/09/29

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Subject: Re: [Leica] Digital R8 now digital R9
From: Nathan Wajsman <wajsman@webshuttle.ch>
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2002 06:47:06 +0200
References: <B9BCE8C4.2F66%cyberdog@attglobal.net>

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
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Nathan Wajsman
Herrliberg (ZH), Switzerland

e-mail: wajsman@webshuttle.ch
mobile: +41 78 732 1430

Photo-A-Week: http://www.wajsman.com/indexpaw2002.htm
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