You took the words right out of my mouth. Now up $20.00 in pre-market. I'm not touching it.
Apple turned in a good quarter only when applied to the "market's expectations". These were set up days earlier by sapper analysts who overstate, with full knowledge, their expectations of Apple's price drop. Apple "beats the street", everybody cheers and the charade goes on. Fact is Apple was down, what, 22%? I'm OT enough as it is but, believe me, there's a rogue Nobel out there for anyone who studies stock analysts's "failures" rather than their methods.
A collaboration with Ferrari is a not-so-rare marketing ploy. Colnago did it too: More curves, that paint color, that horse, done. Enzo too would be as heartsick as would Hasselblad.
s-a
The rational side of me realizes that camera manufacturers sees much increased competition from nontraditional competitors - manufacturers of phones, tablets/iPads, even eye glasses (Google) - they realize they can't keep selling something that is increasingly perceived by the general public as something big, bulky, impractical, etc ad nauseum. So they have to do something in this marketplace of commodities.
To me, they should have focused on building premium products, and maintain the ergonomics and design that they have become so famous for. Why not build a camera that is modular and upgradeable? How many of us are tired of things that become obsolete every few years? Example, my iPhone 4 is not only two years old, and even though it's as shiny as it was when I first got it, it feels old somehow. If I could have one where the buttons wouldn't wear out, and I could instead upgrade the 'guts' of the phone, and pay less than I do for a brand new phone, I'd do it in a heart beat. .
I don't buy that first argument. When were hassies anything but premium? The ones that actually got screwed over by everything digital are in-fact the yashicas konicas etc.,
Re the modular system, it's kinda funny, having been in the software world, where emphasis is on re-usability and modularity, I find it weird that a lot of software instead is run or pushed into hardware that isn't modular.
One problem I guess is the size. Beyond a certain size, I guess it's kind of superfluous.
- via tapatalk.
I don't buy that first argument. When were hassies anything but premium? The ones that actually got screwed over by everything digital are in-fact the yashicas konicas etc.,
Hmm, the article linked out to another Hasselbad - the Lunar.
I think I have seen enough screwed up designs for today.
Although going by their digital MF bodies, one wouldn't really know if they have deviated much in "design" terms
Sometimes, one wished these guys learn a little bit from exotic supercar makers. Ferrari, for example, haven't made a rebadged Punto.
I forgot--what's the word in economics where there's too many goods chasing too-few buyers? I think this 15,500 Dow is a crock. I just don't buy it. Who is buying this junk?
I think it's a hype too, but the index is all about perception, and has very little to do with reality. Rich people are getting richer, is about all you can tell from it. It's a very poor indicator of the general state of the economy.
Really--Hasselblad's primary market for some time now presumably has not been film cameras, but high-end digital studio cameras, the ones that cost $30K+. The real problem for Hasselblad is not that there's no market for 503's, but that the market for $30,000 cameras is being eroded by $5,000 cameras. I would think that what their buyers really want is not a $5,000 Nex-7 (no one wants that), but an $8,000 H4D.
Exactly right!
So much of this is driven by the sensor fabs. I wonder if they are even going to bother making MF digital sensors in the future. The market is just so tiny. Better to sell a zillion tiny sensors (in phones) than a few thousand big ones, even if you get $5k per for them.
With the new camera they are entering the realm of items that are rebranded and old model Sony. How is that premium?
It is a fact that people are ditching cameras for iPhones and the like. What would you do if you owned Hasselblad today?
Personally, I would agree that Hasselblad should come out and sell some digital backs that will fit their 500 series and 200 series. Those suckers would sell damn quick. Actually, thinking out loud, if someone could produce digital "backs" that would fit old film cameras, you would have a pretty good product on your hands.
I don't think the problem is so much the structure of capitalism as it is that the nature and evolution of technology (specifically manufacturing technology) has largely eliminated the value of Hassy's historic core competencies.
Which is a fancy way of saying that those things that they used to be uniquely good at are not so rare anymore. Lots of companies can produce precision components and assemblies these days. The ability to do so, in and of itself, is no longer sufficient to gain competitive advantage.
What they are doing is not particularly irrational. If I owned a brand with the "premium" appeal of Hasselblad, I'd do the same thing: Cash in. Milk it. Sell over-priced, "prestige" products to every sucker who is willing to buy, knowing full well that each sell has the side-effect of diluting and diminishing the value of the brand.
Its not particularly pleasant to watch, but it makes sense.
It only make "sense" if you are a vulture fund/equity. For all others - the company tradition and image, the workforce, and the society at large - that "sense" has huge negative impact. Human history would have been immeasurably poorer had it been driven by such anti-values.
I wonder how many of those lipsticked-up pigs do they sell, anyway? Enough to make a strong difference on the bottom line? Enough to make it worth trading brand equity for? I just don't know. Maybe they sell well to the status-conscious newly affluent in China. If so, it looks like the Marxists got what they wanted- a classless society. That is, a society without class.
The thing is, the heart of their market used to be pro photographers, and they've lost much of that market to the high-end DSLRs now; they have their business in big digital sensors priced out of any normal retail range, but even that must be a shrinking market, and it's one that's more vulnerable to commodification than the old film-camera market was. Complex mechanics done with stellar ergonomics have a certain intrinsic value, because they're hard to do together; but if you no longer need the mechanical complexity, the functional heart of your product (the CCD) is a commodity, and all you have to compete on is good ergonomics and a brand name, that's a tough freakin' situation.
Sure, they probably should "target the large premium market in Asia". But with what kind of product? A high-dollar fancy camera that relies on glitz and status rather than special functionality? That's exactly what this disturbing product is supposed to be, I think.
-NT
Actually, thinking out loud, if someone could produce digital "backs" that would fit old film cameras, you would have a pretty good product on your hands. No need for a preview or functions, just a download port. I'd grab one for my Nikons, no sweat.
About 15 years ago, a company named Imagek (later known as Silicon Film) "announced" a drop-in digital device for use in 35mm SLR cameras. It never made it to market, and eventually become a classic example of vaporware. Here's a link to one article on dpreview; the company apparently no longer exists.
Personally, I'm glad such a device didn't become a viable product.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?