Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/04/01

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Subject: [Leica] Leica is buying the Epson R-D1 technology!
From: bdcolen at earthlink.net (B. D. Colen)
Date: Thu Apr 1 07:00:57 2004

LOOK AT THE DATE!!!!!

-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+bdcolen=earthlink.net@leica-users.org
[mailto:lug-bounces+bdcolen=earthlink.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of
Leonard J Kapner
Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2004 10:00 AM
To: 'Leica Users Group'
Subject: RE: [Leica] Leica is buying the Epson R-D1 technology!


Since Leica is a publicly-traded company, wouldn't they have to disclose
such a material transaction to the business press?

Len

-- 

According to a Leica web forum, Leica is buying the Epson R-D1
technology! 
They claim that this will allow them to ship the digital M by the year's

end, instead of in 2006. They have a crash team adapting their 10
Megapixel 
full frame sensor to the R-D1 body and release it as Leica R-D1 by 
Photokina. The team that was working on the original Leica Digital M
will 
continue to work on R-D2, that uses the Leica M7 body instead o the 
modified Voigtlander R2. Due to this buyout, Epson will not be releasing

the R-D1 as announced :-( Of course we will have a full frame camera 
instead of the 1.5x crop factor so this is good news indeed.

Apparently the deal only works because Epson couldn't see how they can
sell 
the R-D1 into this niche market. So instead of just dropping the whole 
project, they cut their losses and struck a deal with Leica. There are
some 
rumors that Epson bought out the Hermes shares of Leica (30%) at 200% 
premium to make the transaction appealing to Hermes, but there's no 
independent confirmation for now.

// richard 


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Replies: Reply from ljkapner at cox.net (Leonard J Kapner) ([Leica] Leica is buying the Epson R-D1 technology!)
In reply to: Message from ljkapner at cox.net (Leonard J Kapner) ([Leica] Leica is buying the Epson R-D1 technology!)