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Re: [OM] Meeting Maitani

Subject: Re: [OM] Meeting Maitani
From: Jim Brokaw <jbrokaw@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2002 15:27:19 -0700
Thomas has hit the nail on the head... Olympus makes *business decisions*
for *business* reasons. Return On Investment, Return to Stockholders, Profit
Margin and PROFIT are the drivers behind any decision Olympus management
makes.

Much as I would like them to be photographers driven by an all-consuming
need to create the best photographic equipment for digital and film imaging,
its likely that many of the top management at Olympus are only amateur level
photographers. Even their camera designers may see it more as an engineering
job than a passion-driven cause. Maitani is both a photographer with a keen
sense of what he wants as a photographic tool and also a genius design
engineer who is able to get his 'tool' vision transformed into metal and
glass.

That his vision was a *business success* makes it all the more satisfying
(to us!) but if there was no *business success* we would not see much from
Olympus. Some of the ideas/requests/wishes I see here on the list are so
narrowly focused that it is highly unlikely that they will be a business
success. A responsible business manager needs to filter out these ideas
because *that's his job*! A company cannot do all things, and if it persists
in doing products that cannot or do not generate a profit then that company
doesn't last long... Even a company that has been around a long time it can
go under just by missing its market and putting out the wrong kind of
products.

Maitani was enough of a genius as a designer to create several highly
desirable series of cameras, from the original Olympus Pens, to the Pen F
series, the OM series, the IS's, and the Stylus series. Each of these
designs served its purpose as a creative instrument well, but each also
served its *business purpose* of generating profit for the shareholders
which is the *real* goal for any continuing business.

The next generation of Olympus designers and managers should hope to equal
the success of Maitani is both areas... and we should hope they do, for if
they cannot our OM's will truly be orphans.
-- 

Jim Brokaw
OM-1's, -2's, -4's, (no -3's yet) and no OM-oney...


on 9/26/02 1:52 PM, Thomas Heide Clausen at T.Clausen@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> If Olympus is a traded company (not sure of the correct
> term in english?), then they have one obligation, and one
> obligation only: the shareholders. Realizing that they did
> not manage to get a good enough slice of the pro-market to
> keep the high profits, they refocus to an area where they
> have gotten a good slice. And, face it, Olympus has done
> very well in the p&s and digital market and seem to be
> doing well in the future as well.
> 
> Much as we would like Olympus to be driven by visionary
> engineers and photo-enthusiasts, I am afraid that this is
> not the case atall....:(


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