Micro 4/3 Olympus financial situation - is this bad news?

I'm not sure about that. Panasonic already has distribution issues. Panasonic's marketing is just as bad as Olympus'. I would rather see it sold to Sony instead. Maybe even Fuji.

And yet read the Sony forums (as I used to) and you'll see endless complaints about Sony's marketing and distribution.
 
I'm not sure about that. Panasonic already has distribution issues. Panasonic's marketing is just as bad as Olympus'. I would rather see it sold to Sony instead. Maybe even Fuji.
And yet read the Sony forums (as I used to) and you'll see endless complaints about Sony's marketing and distribution.

Buying an X100 isn't the easiest thing either.
 
And given the endless complaints (including by 'respectable' commentators like Thom Hogan) about Nikon's distribution failures maybe it's down to Canon to take them over - jump right on the mirrorless bandwagon (depsite their protestations that they don't need it).:)

Not going to happen of course. Canon are a conservative company and I think Oly innovation would suffer if they were part of the Canon empire.
 
And yet read the Sony forums (as I used to) and you'll see endless complaints about Sony's marketing and distribution.

olli,

True. All of them do. But sony at least has some visability in stores with the NEX and Alpha cameras. I really do like Panasonic and its products. While this mighit seem like a good fit, it leaves only one company really investing into mFT. I'd rather see two or more.
 
I would just say that Panasonic and Olympus are pretty well represented in the UK. Lots of stock and both in shops and websites they have a good presence. TV and magazine advertising too. Whether this is because the UK buys a larger % of m4/3 than anywhere apart from Japan or whether we buy more of it because of the greater visibility I cannot say.

I do read about the problems in the US and the "Amazon has two GH2's, Oh they've gone!!" situation doesn't really happen here.
 
When I lived in Germany I was always able to get newly released cameras from all the manufacturers at the Saturn chain and at independent stores. This does seem to be a problem specific to the US. I wonder if it has to do with the greater dominance of the big box retail stores in the US who despite their physical size only carry a limited - and fairly unimaginative - range of products.
 
Yes its always puzzled me about the US supply problems. Surely its easier to get cameras to the US than it is to Europe, and its certainly a bigger market. Would be interesting if any US contributors have a view on this. Is it that the manufacturers provide limited numbers for the US or that the US dealers don't / won't stock them? As I said m4/3 is doing very well in the UK. It gets great press in the UK photo magazines for example. There are regular articles on things like "A real DSLR alternative" and "The performance of a DSLR in a compact body" Its been like that since the G1. Is it the same in the States?

When I lived in Germany I was always able to get newly released cameras from all the manufacturers at the Saturn chain and at independent stores. This does seem to be a problem specific to the US. I wonder if it has to do with the greater dominance of the big box retail stores in the US who despite their physical size only carry a limited - and fairly unimaginative - range of products.
 
I'm not a dealer, so all I have to offer is "conjecture". I think part of it has to do with the Canikon dominance in the SLR market here. We typically have no problems getting Panasonic Point and Shoot cameras. I also think it has to do with the Big Box stores wanting to discount everything, which reduces Panasonic's margin potential. This means either the big box stores are unwilling to stock them or Pansonic is unwilling to sell at the price the big box stores want.

Some of it may have to do with the Yen to US dollar and Euro to Yen.

The G3 retails on Panasonic's website for 699 USD, which is 57315 Yen.

The G3 retails in Germany for 699 euros, which is 81783 Yen.

So, it benifits Panasonic to provide product to Europe over the United States.
 
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