Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/10/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Here's a paraphrase of the article I did yesterday for another list. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2004 14:26:29 +0200 (MEST) From: Daniel Ridings <daniel.ridings@edd.uio.no> Reply-To: rollei@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us To: rollei@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us Subject: Re: [Rollei] Hasselblad in today's news... A paraphrase, paragraph by paragraph 60 more people are being laid off and the classical Hasselblad is being phased out The new danish (typical) management is cutting back activities in Gothenburg significantly. It's the new strategy after merging Imacon and Hasselblad. 30 white-collar and 30 production line people go. Management and administration is now run from Kopenhagen. Production of camera parts is out-sourced. These 60 are over and above the 175 from earlier this year. In the big new house that was built there will be about 70 left. Product development (delicate mechanics) and assembly. Most assembly in the future will require less people since Hasselblad is concentrating on wholly digital cameras. The digital part of production is taken care of in Copenhagen. All electronic components are out sourced to Asia. According to the new stategy plan the film models of Hasselblad will be phased out (cf their FAQ my comment). The dramatic collapse of this market has been accentuated the last few months. Hasselblad is losing money on every camera sold. Therefore management is taking action to lower sales. The rebates, up to 20% at the moment, will cease. The price will go up in order to compensate for the exchange rate losses on the North American market All taken together this means the time is out for the classic Hasselblad model. After merging with Imacon a digital camera has been produced in record time (Imacon + H1). The camera is sold for 165.000 SEK (divide by 7.36 to get USD) which is half as much as the H1 with a separate digital back. Hasselblad is looking for a profitable position in the segment for digital MF. The first version of H1D has 22 million px. The product is compared to the another for professional users, the Canon EOS 1Ds that has 16,7 mp, but costs half as much (the Canon). Hasselblad is entering a whole new product cycle. Up until the recent H1 Hasselblad had essential been making and selling the same camera system since the 60's. The product line of digital models will have to be renewed as often as every few months. ------------- Ok, it's a rough paraphrase but I got most of the important stuff in. It's ok to spread it to others as far as I am concerned. Daniel On Tue, 19 Oct 2004, Austin Franklin wrote: > For those of you who can read Swedish: > > http://www.gp.se/gp/jsp/Crosslink.jsp?d=113&a=185270 > > seems that Hasselblad is "phasing" out the V series, laying off 70 more > people, and will only be developing digital cameras with Imacon...to be > produced in Asia. > > Austin > > >