Hi Kenneth,
the question you are asking is the same question all users are asking for months/ years now.
As we try to be a representative of the Contax community, we are trying continiously to improve the communication process between Kyocera and its costumers. Unfortunately until now with not much progress.
I can totally understand the reaction of Marc and many others. This reaction is mirrored in falling sales numbers and lack of Contax-related activity on various photo sites.
Since the information we get are changing so fast each time, we gave up to forward this to our users. It would confuse even more instead of clearifying things.
I do not know whether we told you that already, but Mr. Inoue, has not the same responsibilities anymore then at the time we were introduced to him at Photokina. A new person is now on the "organigramm". Whatever that will mean...
Until today, the "rule of silence" is still used at Kyocera. We tryed many many times now to convince them, that this might not be the right strategy. IMO no matter what kind of roadplan is now on the table, it has to be communicated. Otherwise, there is no costumer anymore to talk to. Salesnumbers are not lying and they do not happen by accident. The major reason is the lack of communication. A lack of communication leads to a lack of trust and a lack of trust means the "stop" for further investements of loyal costumers in the Contax brand.
All what we can do here is to offer for the still existing Contax users and potential Contax buyers a home, where they are heard amd where they can speak with each other. Kyocera is following each posting in this forum. They only need to use this "knowledge base" and make it reality and the problems will disappear.
I can not say with confidence, what in my personal opinion Kyocera is more likely to do because of my experience in the past. It was just changing too often.
I do not know the exact sales numbers over the last 10 years of the different Contax systems to make a constructive judgement. And at the same time, you have to know how those salesnumbers have been achieved.
N-System was bad in sales numbers and worse than the old C/Y-System. The problem is, that this information is worth nothing, if you do not look closer into the reasons. In Germany for ex&le, the N-System was basically not at all communicated. We meet many Contax users on fairs and in the German Contaxinfo forum, who even did not know that an N-System exists, or a N Digital with a full frame chip.
You can not sell a product, if nobody knows about its existance. I assume the same mistake was made in the US. Japan is different. I have seen japanese N1 broshures which are really good. So I would assume that the sales numbers and markiting efforts were better in Japan.
Lenses for the N-System is another problem. Many great zooms. But unfortunately most of them are overlapping in the zoom range. And even more important: Almost none FFL. Contax is known for its FFL for 30 years. So why are there so few FFl in the N-System? This is definetly a reason for many people not to buy the N-System
The second problem with sales numbers over the last 10 years is the dramatic shift of market shares in DSLR among all brands. Canon has thanks to an agressive price and marketing c&aign over the last decade now a market share of over 60% in DSLR. Nikon is really struggling in doing business as before. Olympus is ways behind its targts, Minolta just enters the market with a DSLR, Pentax is basically fading away, all manual focus sales numbers and non-digital sales numbers are going south dramatically...
So this is for all producers a tough time. But for those with a niche market like Leica and Contax (manual focus and not strong in DSLR) it is especially tough. I personally do think, that with the right marketing and communication strategy along with the right product mix (bodies AND lenses), the N-system would be the perfect way to go. But this is my opinion without having all information needed for such a decision.
The first thing I would do, is to ask all existing users and potential buyers what they want to have. Only after this research, it make sense to make a decision. Everything else is guessing and speculating. For a decision of this weight and consequences like the death of the Contax brand, it should IMO taken more seriously than it seems to be taken at the moment.
I have respect for the japanese culture and the way how Kyocera is doing business. But it has also in Tokyo to be aknowledged that this way of doing business got them into this trouble. So it is time to change. If the key people at Kyocera do not understand this, Contax will never ever survive.
Canon, Nikon, Minolta - they all learned from the past and make it now better than Kyocera. I am surprised, that this shame did not resulted yet in a fast change of strategy at Kyocera.
