Olympus sells Imaging Business

[Video Hummus]

6 hours ago, MrSMW said:

Views have just gone up.

They missed a trick here...

Titled ‘Modern Art Twat Production’ and no one will watch it, but if it had been titled, ‘CLICK HERE FOR FREE TITS!!!!!” then maybe Olympus would not be up for sale.

Olympus was known for their quirky features.

Nipple detect AF would have rounded out the starry AF feature.

Maybe canon took a page from their book when they implemented brown eye AF tracking?

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

12 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

It'll never happen, but why can't a cheap camera have audio inputs and a headphone jack?  Surely those components aren't THAT expensive to include?

Market "segmentation" - put $5 BOM parts and charge $100 more.

[MrSMW]

Sorry, did I say 'FREE TITS'?

I thought I had typed 'FERRETS' but this damned spell correct.

[hoodlum]

JIP issued an update on the transfer of the Olympus Imaging business.

https://jipinc.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/Regarding-Olympus-Imaging-Business-Transfer.pdf

 

 

 

[rawshooter]

On 7/17/2020 at 7:47 AM, MrSMW said:

Views have just gone up.

They missed a trick here...

Titled ‘Modern Art Twat Production’ and no one will watch it, but if it had been titled, ‘CLICK HERE FOR FREE TITS!!!!!” then maybe Olympus would not be up for sale.

On top of that, the 'artist' promoted in this clip is actually a children's book illustrator moonlighting as the cliché of what he thinks contemporary art is - while actually having zero credentials in the contemporary art system.

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

On 7/18/2020 at 12:10 AM, hoodlum said:

JIP issued an update on the transfer of the Olympus Imaging business.

https://jipinc.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/Regarding-Olympus-Imaging-Business-Transfer.pdf

 

 

 

All corporate jib-jabber; combined with conflicting declarations from Olympus in various media outlets, things still not looking good.

[John Matthews]

No one knows what's going to happen with Olympus, but I'd just like to give context that makes sense to me.

1. Many other companies are also in trouble for three major reasons:
2. Phones provide "good enough" quality for most people with easy sharing abilities since most people don't print anymore
3. Most people don't want to carry an extra device for making photos or videos

Although cameras keep getting better, the human eye is not; hence, there are so many awesome options out there for great quality, even on the ever-growing used market (crazy deals!). You can talk all you want about megapixels, 8k/12k RAW, etc. but this fact remains.

Olympus Imaging accounts for only 5.5% of the total company's business, contrary to other companies like Nikon, Sigma, Leica, Hasselblad and Blackmagic who are seemingly much more imaging-centric companies.

Olympus has about 40,000 employees and a fraction of them are involved with imaging. Here are some other companies for context:

Canon (200,000), Fujifilm (32,000), Nikon (25,000), Sony (114,000), Blackmagic (600), Sigma (1,135), Panasonic (273,000), Ricoh (98,000), Leica Camera (1,800), Hasselblad, part of DJI (660).

Many of these companies are dealing with significant losses in profits due to the current trends and economic situation. All of the companies are dealing with year-over-year market shrinkage to the tune of greater than 50%. That’s huge.

Of the companies above, only the ones that adapt to the market trends will be around in 10 years or they’ll have to foot the bill in terms of losses in imaging (not likely?).

I would say Olympus management inspires confidence in that they’re being proactive. They will be selling their imaging business (highly likely) and JIP will have to either adapt it to make it profitable, shut it down or sell it again.

My guess is the following:

JIP will take it over, hire consultants and market analysts to identify a profitable future and in what markets they can compete. This will mean they’ll cut a lot of jobs (not necessarily a bad business thing if you’re trying to adapt). The end result will be a much more efficient company with a brand-new, modern factory in a low-cost country (Vietnam, not China-bonus). That is not such a bad position. They'll either sell it back to Olympus or Olympus imaging will become its own company. This will be the best scenario in my mind. The worst scenario is that they cannot make it profitable and they’ll try to sell or shut it down. In all cases, we still have fantastic Olympus gear with an amazing selection of lenses. I don't think they're going to strip the company of its patents and sell the Olympus name to the highest bidder- it's simply not going to happen. The Japanese are too proud to let that happen to a household name like Olympus (who's not even that invested in the imaging business).

Given current market trends, I have doubts about a brighter future than Olympus imaging for some of the companies above. The catchy headlines of “Olympus has fallen” are not the entire truth, but time will tell.

[rawshooter]

Just look at what JIP did with the Vaio laptop brand, and you get an idea of the future of Olympus' cameras and lenses.

The future cameras and lenses won't even be called Olympus because JIP didn't acquire the right for that name, but only "Pen" and "OM-D" without any other brand name.

I bet almost any price that they will slap these brands on rather generic Chinese cameras and lenses like the Xiaomi MFT camera and lenses.

 

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

Interesting that Olympus have all in hand to make the perfect vlogger camera - which looks like a target demographic now.

Get the E-M10 MK III (or the new IV), put the E-M5 MK III sensor with PDAF, make some work with the AF especially with eye / face detect, correct the auto exposure in video (Camera Conspiracies had a very good video about it) headphone and mic jack. Maybe ditch the EVF if it is not needed by them (I really don't know). Put a flippy screen and a $699 price (or $799 with EVF) and bingo.

[fuzzynormal]

3 hours ago, Márcio Kabke Pinheiro said:

bingo.

They need B9 on their card but someone stole that ball 7 years ago.

[fuzzynormal]

On 7/21/2020 at 12:07 AM, John Matthews said:

cameras keep getting better, the human eye is not

As a person transitioning into old-man status, can confirm.

[John Matthews]

17 hours ago, rawshooter said:

Just look at what JIP did with the Vaio laptop brand, and you get an idea of the future of Olympus' cameras and lenses.

Ok. Vaio still makes laptops that make sense to some people somewhere. Sony still has a partial stake in the company. Yes, they found a niche market that appeals to some people. The parallel with Olympus would be different. The important thing here is that the Vaio company still exists today. Again, no one know what will happen. All this doesn't change the fact that Olympus has a mature, compact, mirrorless system with a decent following. They'll be ready to make new cameras, lenses, and audio products in their new factory in Vietnam (a LCC and not China). Canon and Nikon don't have these luxuries right now in mirrorless. It must be a decent business position as JIP wouldn't be interested in them, right? I doubt they're stupid. Olympus is being proactive and doing something about their current position in the market. However, I would concede Olympus believes another company would do better them and I think they simply have too much overhead for a sustainable future. They need to cut jobs and streamline to be more efficient and give us the products we want- that's reassuring (but scary too). Let's just see what JIP can or can't do before declaring Olympus imaging as "dead." In business, this happen all the time! Most of the time, no one cares. Just look at the car industry and you can see a vast number of acquisitions and still most of the companies exist and make good cars today.

17 hours ago, rawshooter said:

The future cameras and lenses won't even be called Olympus because JIP didn't acquire the right for that name, but only "Pen" and "OM-D" without any other brand name.

It makes sense that Olympus wouldn't want another company to own their name. Again, Olympus imaging is only 5.5% of their current company business. It would be unfair to the other part of Olympus to sell the name off.

[rawshooter]

16 minutes ago, John Matthews said:

Ok. Vaio still makes laptops that make sense to some people somewhere. Sony still has a partial stake in the company. Yes, they found a niche market that appeals to some people. The parallel with Olympus would be different. The important thing here is that the Vaio company still exists today. 

It's just a shell company. JIP made a deal with the Chinese company Nexstgo (which sells generic laptops mostly to the Indian market: https://www.nexstgo.com/hk/en/products) that Nexstgo computers can be sold in Japan and Western countries with the Vaio label.

The same will happen with the future "OM-D" and "Pen" cameras, and "Zuiko" lenses. Especially if you see how Chinese lens producers (like Viltrox and Yongnuo) are stepping up their game - they will probably be interested to sell their products with the Zuiko brand.

JIP is a private equity firm, with no history of product development or manufacturing.

[John Matthews]

22 minutes ago, rawshooter said:

It's just a shell company. JIP made a deal with the Chinese company Nexstgo (which sells generic laptops mostly to the Indian market: https://www.nexstgo.com/hk/en/products) that Nexstgo computers can be sold in Japan and Western countries with the Vaio label.

The same will happen with the future "OM-D" and "Pen" cameras, and "Zuiko" lenses. Especially if you see how Chinese lens producers (like Viltrox and Yongnuo) are stepping up their game - they will probably be interested to sell their products with the Zuiko brand.

JIP is a private equity firm, with no history of product development or manufacturing.

Predictions, predictions. This would mean they close the new factory in Vietnam and simply sell the Zuiko, Pen, OM-D names (and patents?) to the highest bidder in China. Are those names really worth that much? Yes, JIP is a private equity firm, but why couldn't they try to make it work by getting consultants that know their stuff? That might be what they did with Vaio, and the conclusion was to outsource the entire production. Don't you think there might be more profitable alternatives than shutting it all down from the get-go? Common sense tells me alternatives exist.

It would be a fallacy to believe that just because X company did 1, 2, and 3 that they would do exactly the same thing in a different context (and industry). Am I wrong? I think the only people who really know what's going to happen are in that discussion room with JIP and Olympus. Many people are pretending to know more, but really no one does. We'll see. Maybe I'm just naive and business people do the same thing all the time without any cultural or contextual consideration. It will certainly be interesting to see what they do from a business perspective. Meanwhile, we've got great MFT cameras with an incredible selection of lenses!

[noone]

6 hours ago, Márcio Kabke Pinheiro said:

Interesting that Olympus have all in hand to make the perfect vlogger camera - which looks like a target demographic now.

Get the E-M10 MK III (or the new IV), put the E-M5 MK III sensor with PDAF, make some work with the AF especially with eye / face detect, correct the auto exposure in video (Camera Conspiracies had a very good video about it) headphone and mic jack. Maybe ditch the EVF if it is not needed by them (I really don't know). Put a flippy screen and a $699 price (or $799 with EVF) and bingo.

Has Olympus put a PDAF sensor in ANY camera other than the EM1 (1,2,3 and X)?    

I would love it if they did because I want as cheap a camera as I can find to adapt my two 43s DSLR lenses and they really need a PDAF camera (mine have issues so may not work at all or only partly so currently the lead candidate is a used EM1 mark 1).

History tells me they will not put it in any camera as it stands and might be a small part of what has killed them, to do so now would be too little too late and a bit of a WTF moment.

[John Matthews]

4 minutes ago, noone said:

Has Olympus put a PDAF sensor in ANY camera other than the EM1 (1,2,3 and X)? 

EM5 Mark III, but you can get a used EM1 Mark ii for much less... and it's better.

[John Matthews]

Not sure if this was shared already, but it's very interesting to hear from someone that was in the business of investment fims

 

[fuzzynormal]

3 hours ago, John Matthews said:

They need to cut jobs and streamline

Which, as I understand it for their situation, is difficult (if not illegal) to do in Japan?

[IronFilm]

2 hours ago, fuzzynormal said:

Which, as I understand it for their situation, is difficult (if not illegal) to do in Japan?

That's my hope, that they simply sold it off to JIP so that then JIP can do their dirty work for Olympus to massively streamline the business to trim off all the fat, then returns it to Olympus (with a generous profit in the sale given to JIP as their fee for turning around the division). 

[Video Hummus]

Olympus does best in Japan. I think they cut the fat off, streamline, and take a shot at continuing sales in Japan. Biggest question will they spend the money to innovate future products in any meaningful way?

I’m kinda hoping Panasonic will buy some important assets if this happens, mainly any PDAF patents or licenses (or whatever is going on with that shit) and become the primary innovator for the MFT consortium. Maybe collaborate with Blackmagic to move the mount forward? Maybe develop a newer mount with backwards compatibility with a much larger diameter and shallower flange.

Like a theoretical MFT+ mount with 55mm diameter and a 15mm flange. Backwards compatible with MFT using an adapter, perhaps with a ND, hmmm maybe? Also opens the door for MAS with IBIS at larger sizes.