Olympus selling camera business...

News out of Japan is that Olympus has just sold their camera business to a venture capital group to be effective in 3 months.  The group specializes in restructuring, selling off assets, dismantling, etc.  It's not clear what route they will take but we should consider all product plans and roadmaps to be invalid at this time...

Here's the official Olympus announcement:
https://www.olympus-global.com/ir/data/announcement/2020/contents/ir00013.pdf

E.J. Peiker wrote:News out of Japan is that Olympus has just sold their camera business to a venture capital group to be effective in 3 months.  The group specializes in restructuring, selling off assets, dismantling, etc.  It's not clear what route they will take but we should consider all product plans and roadmaps to be invalid at this time...

Here's the official Olympus announcement:
https://www.olympus-global.com/ir/data/announcement/2020/contents/ir00013.pdf

I wonder about the value of patents for both photo and non-photo purposes

Wow, although not unexpected. Thank god I ditched that system a while ago. I was afraid that would happen so I sold off most of my gear. I kept one body and the macro because the stacking feature is so handy.

Seems like whenever a venture capital group gets involved customers (and employees) get screwed. This is not long term good news for Oly users.

Well that put the cat among the pigeons. I have been looking at swapping from canon to olympus. Will put that idea on hold for now.

Ranger wrote:Well that put the cat among the pigeons. I have been looking at swapping from canon to olympus. Will put that idea on hold for now.

I know. It's all disturbing. I see Canon as holding onto the number one position, so I think they'd be a safe bet in the long run. Number two and three seems like it will eventually be Sony then Nikon, but Nikon is pretty dependent on the camera industry so who knows how they will make out?

Good article from a friend that used to be a VP for a camera company that sold itself to venture capital - in that company's case it worked out...
https://photopxl.com/olympus-says-goodb ... -business/

Well that is a bummer. In the years ahead, I really thought sensor size would become less important and 4/3 system had some real merit. Just look at what Apple has done with the tiny sensor in the iPhone. However, it appears I may be wrong.

Ron Niebrugge wrote:Well that is a bummer.  In the years ahead, I really thought sensor size would become less important and 4/3 system had some real merit.  Just look at what Apple has done with the tiny sensor in the iPhone.  However, it appears I may be wrong.

Olympus is not the only manufacturer of the m43 system.

Whether it's the end of m43 we don't know yet. So far it's a change of ownership.

DChan: For sure. The change in ownership alone isn't the problem. But, the fact it is being sold to a venture capital firm is what concerns me as it is rarely a good sign. I'm afraid that news like this only gives people more concern with making a switch which then only speeds up the downward cycle. I hope I'm wrong.

Ron Niebrugge wrote:DChan:  For sure.  The change in ownership alone isn't the problem.   But, the fact it is being sold to a venture capital firm is what concerns me as it is rarely a good sign.  I'm afraid that news like this only gives people more concern with making a switch which then only speeds up the downward cycle.  I hope I'm wrong.

Not disagreeing there.

Hi,

I wonder how many more dominoes will fall in the near future. Very sad.

Have Fun,
Jeff

If we take the Sony Vaio as an example of what could happen - This same company bought Vaio from Sony and then released some new computers with the Vaio name and unsuspecting consumers bought what they thought was a quality Sony product and got a very poorly made and poor performing laptop and then wondered what the heck happened...

For more about Vaio, here’s a link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaio

Joe

Thom Hogan, as usual, has an interesting take on the sale.
http://www.bythom.com

Scott Fairbairn wrote:Thom Hogan, as usual, has an interesting take on the sale.
http://www.bythom.com

Very much in-line with my thoughts (I worked with numerous Japanese tech companies for about 25 years and Thom is spot on)