43 Rumors

I think the same…hope some good FT5 soon!!!;)

” There is indeed a perception from some potential buyers that you should avoid to buy an Olympus camera”

Isn’t there always? For some reason, Olympus is never taken seriously, and most people believe Nikon and Canon are the best brands. Needless to say, I disagree. I took a course recently and all the functions that Olympus has right there on the screen, Nikon and Canon users took ages to find in their menus. Also, Olympus isn’t as heavy and has a smaller grip, which is ideal for me as a woman with small hands.

The only thing I am afraid of is that if Olympus collapses, I’ll have to switch to another brand, and I really, really don’t want to! Until then. I’ll make sure to get a move on with buying the lenses that I still want to have (hey, if we all do that, it might give Oly a boost and stop it from collapsing! )

@admin

Can you please ask your sources if this crisis is affecting Olympus R&D and therefore product announcements? I think a PEN announcement was rumored for January some time ago – and that is their usual launch time ( E-PL1 2010, E-PL2 2011 ).

I believe that is the thing that interests most people who visit this website, since we all have invested in 4/3 / m4/3 gear more or less.

Thanks

The brand name is now damaged. Most likely there is no strategic work in the company. R&D people are still there and are not the problem. The problem at Olympus is strategy and marketing. The former is “lost in the market landscape” and the later limited to bragging. Compare with Nikon marketing of the 1 system – it sells even if it is not really competitive.
There are similarities Olympus – SAAB; Everybody loves the brand but few buy the products. In the SAAB case nothing produced last half year but no bancrupcy yet. Olympus is well off in comparison!

konica – minolta – olympus

all have one thing in common, they were probably the most unconventional, innovators and most attractive niche brands..

all have one thing in common, they are in oblivion…

even if there is no hit on sales volume, the sale price and value has went down significantly. I just sold my epl2 which i owned for 5mth, i already have hard time finding a buyer and the news just made me have to lower the price further down to finally get rid of it yesterday.

It is funny that so many people here still try to see good things with this company. We should recognize that the dirty practices were conducted for decades, not just for a short time. So, if Olympus really tumbles, all the bright engineers should feel deceived and the customers as well.

The notion that Panasonic is the big electronic giant, and Olympus the photographic manufacturer, who fight with its nice products against windmills, is essentially void. The failure of 4/3 may have its roots also in the management attitude, and the stubbornness of the PEN-only strategy, could have the same reason.

To me Olympus has lost all credibility and I can understand customers, who avoid their products now, because the company’s and their products perspective were never so uncertain as they are now.

I am keeping my m43 gear, but my early Xmas present arrives tomorrow : Fuji X10!

Olympus will not just collapse, more likely:
- External auditors will figure out what happened (kind of)
- Possibly some people will go to jail
- The actual debt and cash flow situation will be figured out
- *IF* the debt is too large, Olympus will need to sell one or more of its branches or resources (medical, industrial, imaging) to raise capital.
- Bankruptcy will not change any of the above, it will just provide protection if Olympus cannot pay its loans (we don’t know that yet)

If the camera/imaging operation is sold, unless it is SERIOUSLY unprofitable, it will very likely keep going in one form or another.

the fall of Olympus is just probably restricted to warranty, repairing issues…otherwise in my opinion, their cameras despite manufactured in China, are very well built and very durable.

There are three issues Olympus would be dealing with now:

1. In Japan, people tend to shun products associated with scandal like this. The problem is that Olympus had its biggest success in home market sales of the Pen cameras. We have no hard numbers yet, but I’d think that there should be a clear lower sales number in Japan soon. If the sales lower by enough, this triggers downstream manufacturing and parts order changes as they try to slow things down.

2. Olympus cannot raise money now. Anything that turns cash flow negative is going to be a very huge problem for them. See #1.

3. Decision making is all but stalled. You can’t make decisions until things resolve up top. You can continue to do R&D and work on projects in progress, but the decisions needed to move them from R&D to products in production will be held up. The good news for Olympus is that they just delivered their latest round of product and wouldn’t be expected to have significant new product until next year at the earliest. But still, delays in decision making now will turn into delays in production later.