What Franke & Heidecke Mk II apparently tried to do is make their camera business not their core business, but concentrate on their expertise, and see what else they could do that would make money. They billed themselves as fine mechanical and optical engineering company.
A good decision, i think. But was it too late already?
Other firms can (and many do) do the same: see what it is that they can do that does make money and has a more certain future.
Agfa, for instance, is still doing well.
You can make money in a market that's spoilt for choice. Why would other manufacturers succeed in such a market, while that same market would be the reason why Rollei would not?
Rollei could have dominated the market instead of whoever did. Why, they had firmly cornered a large portion of that market, but let it slip. Japanese manufacturers (by the way, they had been in the business for almost as long as Rollei, so not a freshly emerging force, that first had to learn the trade) could take market share away from Rollei by offering thingies people wanted more than Rolleiflexes.
And that, not a saturated market, is why Rollei eventually folded.
Take their final attempt, the AF system: it was introduced as "new" several times, at several separate occasions, several years in a row. It failed to raise interest each and every time.
And that not because people aren't interested in AF. But the market was wanting something else more than 'just' the option to use AF with 3 lenses. A classic case of too little too late.
The thing that keeps puzzling me is why Rollei quit their digital line. They were among the first to offer 'Rollei brand' digital capture options for their system. Had they kept that up, had they continued targeting the emerging market, they would still be here, doing well.
