Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/08/27
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Mark Rabiner wrote: > The ones who know film is a dinosaur have long ago traded in their boring > film consuming M's and R's for Lexar munching N's and C's. > IF we are listening to the market speaking we'd not be shooting Leica which > has had a solid fraction of 1% going for it for decades upon decades now. > Leica is not a system that market conscious people use. I was not referring to the photographers, I was talking about Leica. It is Leica who has to listen to the market. Yes, it is a niche company, but even niche companies can only survive if they make products that the particular niche they focus on wants to buy. > If we compare the kind of numbers Nikon and Canon sells in than the R bodes > and lenses and M bodies and lenses are a failure. I don't think Leica > thought it was going to outsell then Nikon F5 when it came out with the > Leica R8. The M line is a success because it has been profitable over the years. The R line is a failure commercially because it has lost Leica a lot of money. It has nothing to do with production volumes. I am sure Leica did not expect the R8 to outsell the F5; but surely they did expect to sell enough R8s at high enough prices to have a reasonable margin on each unit and to recover the investment in product development. > It's that nietzsche market thing again we love and thrive on. Porsche is a niche company. It will never have volumes approaching even BMW, let alone Ford or Toyota or GM. Which is fine because Porsche is profitable. Leica is not. I very much doubt that the existing shareholders will want to throw good money after bad if the recently agreed capital injection does not buy Leica enough time to figure out a workable business strategy. "We" may love and thrive on Leica's niche products, but there is not enough of "us" to sustain the company. The market is not good or evil, it is what it is--in a capitalist economy a company must eventually make a profit if it is to exist. It is as simple as that. Nathan -- Nathan Wajsman Almere, The Netherlands General photography: http://www.nathanfoto.com Seville photography: http://www.fotosevilla.com Stock photography: http://www.alamy.com/search-results.asp?qt=wajsman http://myloupe.com/home/found_photographer.php?photographer=507 Prints for sale: http://www.photodeluge.com