PRIC Set to Manage Both Pentax and Ricoh Camera Lines

Well in one respect, its a good thing. Ricoh is incorporating Pentax into the family' unlike Hoya who kept it at arms length, didn't have their other lines working with Pentax to make the brand stronger and seemed only to buy the company to sell it. Frankly Pentax was lucky to get through that and not be sold off in parts IMO.

You look at Tokina, who make some great lenses and almost never hear about them. Hoya's involvement with the brand seems to have pushed if out of sight to most shooters.

Ricoh's move should be seen as positive that they want the brand to grow and that there should be a united front taking new products to market. That being said, I would assume there will be overlapping jobs (like marketing) where some layoffs will happen. Lets hope the core Pentax group continues but fresh ideas certainly couldn't hurt either with Ricoh people joining the team.

Peter,

I'm not sure that Hoya was intent on selling Pentax from the day they bought the company, even though that has been the end result. I think that they were not all that interested in it, and were unwilling to invest much in it. I agree, there was no real committment to Pentax the company or Pentax the brand.

However, if their intent, from the very beginning, had been to sell it, they wouldn't have dissolved the Pentax Corporation and merged it with Hoya. They would have kept it as a seperate, wholly-owned subsidiary. They might have transferred the patents, designs, etc., for the medical devices to Hoya Corp., but keeping Pentax as a seperate entity would have made it easier to sell it.

As it was, they essentially had to reconstitute Pentax Corp., transfer the agreed-upon assets back to the new company, and then sell all the stock in that company to Ricoh. Had Pentax still existed as a corporation, all that work would have been already done. Ricoh would have delivered a check, and Hoya would have signed over the shares.

Ricoh seems to be already showing more commitment than Hoya ever did. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't Ricoh-Pentax announced more new lenses in the four months they've owned the company than Hoya did during their entire stewardship?

The area where the products more clearly overlap is compacts -- neither company has particularly excelled in that market. And then there's the mish-mosh of "mirrorless" strategies, from Q to K-01 to GXR which has its own inherent mish-mosh. Even the combined company is still pretty small, it's kind of hard to imagine all these approaches surviving though each has its niche/merits.

I wonder whether Ricoh was behind the inclusion of focus-peaking manual focusing aid on the K-01.

A good, and not unexpected move.

Separating the camera works into consumer (B2C) and business (B2B) segments reflects smart business. The requirements for both types of products, while overlapping, do require different solutions.

For the consumer side, they are going have to fix the marketing, retail sales, and service programs, especially if they aim to sell those four-figure 560mm lenses beyond existing Pentax DSLR owners. And as Andrew said, the product strategies are a mess and just weird.

I am very curious about the fate of the 645D. I assume that the new Nikon D800 and the forthcoming Canon 5D MK3 models will equal or surpass its resolution in more versatile packages.
The value of the 645D may best be realized in the PMMC B2B side of things. Providing large-scale solutions is Ricoh's core business and it would be great if they could exploit the 645D's capabilities for archival management. If the Kodak-made sensor is still around that is.

ME

Before slagging Hoya too hard, perhaps pause for a moment and think back on the last four years or so. Remember there was a bit of a global recession in there that knocked everybody in the discretionary spending industry for a loop. Keep in mind that Nikon and Canon pros working today are still essentially using cameras (1Ds Mk III, D3(s)) that (gasp) date back to 2007/2008. Those folks seem to have survived.
Hard to believe it, but Pentax announced and brought to market quite a few lenses during Hoya's stewardship. By my own estimate here is what came to us between late 2007 and late 2011: DA 15/4, DA 35/2.4, DA 35/2.8 macro, DA*55/1.4, D FA 100 Macro WR, DA*200/2.8, DA*300/4.0, DA17-70/4, DA18-135 WR, DA 50-200 WR and the DA* 60-250 to name a few. They provided something other camera manufacturers don't seem to focus on - rugged, low cost, great quality optics. Granted, a lot of those lenses were in development before Hoya came on board, but the products still made it into our hands.
In addition, under Hoya's stewardship quite a few excellent cameras were developed and/or released - K200D, K20D, K-7, Km, Kx, Kr, K-5, 645D and now the K-01 (which was obviously in the works before the acquisition by Ricoh).
Amongst all of the turmoil, Hoya kept the lights on, and kept the product pipeline flowing. The recent lens announcements and the introduction of the K-01 are a great sign that Ricoh-Pentax are moving in the right direction. I'm actually excited about what removing the mirror from the K-01 will allow in terms of lens design - especially for wide angle lenses. Removing the mirror allows wide angle lenses that are non-retrofocus. This will cut down on the number of elements, and perhaps allow fast-ish wide to normal lenses that perform almost as well as Leica rangefinder glass at a fraction of the cost.
I'm still a little bummed that they chose a 560/5.6 for the long tele - I would have camped out to buy a 400/4 and a teleconverter. The extra stop of light at f/4 is handy to have for larger wildlife under early morning light conditions and an excellent teleconverter would be a handy, lightweight way to extend a 400/4 into a 560/5.6 when needed. Will be interesting to see how fast and accurately the 560/5.6 will allow cameras to focus in those type of light conditions.
Still waiting for a DA 28/2.0ish...... I read a rumour about it being a possibility, but don't see it on the road map. My M 28/2.8 is a great focal length, but it would be great to have an extra stop of light, a bit more sharpness across the frame, and something that focused a little more reliably. Perhaps I will have to bite the bullet and by an F or FA 28/2.8 - if I can find one. Perhaps the short "Zoom Limited" they have drawn on the road map will be a will be 21-35 and faster than f3.5.... now that would be sweet.

I've come to have great respect for the old Riken, I hope the re-animated company will be as good.

But PRIC?? ?
Was Digital Operations Ricoh Kameras already taken?

"But PRIC?? ?
Was Digital Operations Ricoh Kameras already taken?"

I think you're probably right...but they only considered that after "Cameras, Ricoh And Pentax" was rejected.

But PRIC?? ?
Was Digital Operations Ricoh Kameras already taken?

Yeah, someone ought to be fired for this one...

Bet he drives an Audi or BMW like all the other PRICs....

I haven't posted here for a while but don't you think this was a good business move?
Of course, the said company should perhaps revise its acronym(s) as reported here by some members:
Digital Operations Ricoh Kameras
Cameras, Ricoh And Pentax
PRIC Set to Manage ...

Is there something I am missing here?
JP