Hi Christiano,
thanks for the link, we posted this already a few hours ago in the off-topic/ chat corner...
I do think it is clear that Zeiss is in deep negotiations with differnt companies to continue in some way with the Contax brand. We have no official statement yet and it is too early to know, whether this measn a continuation ofthe manual focus line, the N-system or both or any other system.
What is important by now is, that there is no "hiding game" anymore. It is officila, although done again in a very unprofessional manner. But this is the Kyocera way of doing PR and this will end soon as we all know by now
So there is very probably a future for the Contax brand. The questions will be more model and lens specifica nd with which cooperation partner. If it is the manual focus line, Cosina is surely the hottest candidate. There is alraeyd the relationship via Zeiss.Ikon and Cosina did FAIK also the Yashica FX3 for Kyocera.
So a relaunched Contax S2 would be easily possible with a cooperation partner like Cosina.
If we are looking at the more "modern" models with a lot of electronic in it. AF etc. like the G-system oder the N-system, this is tougher to tell. I am sure Zeiss will talk to Sony, Panasonic and a few others. A lot of know-how is required to match the N-System and G-system technology also in the future. So a big company would be needed as a cooperation partner for this.
The only exception would be, if Zeiss would put different responsibilities on to different shoulders. Each partner would then only be responsible for a certain task, in which he is good at.
An ex&le would be: marketing and/or distribution by one company (someone like Hasselbald, Cosina, Sony etc.), Development and Production on an order by order basis by Koycera (as they do & did already for many other companies i.e. Leica, Canon etc.) and the strategy concept, (maybe also marketing)and as the final decision maker Zeiss.
With this, you could run different product lines with difefernt partbners and you are not restricted on the capabilities of one cooperation partner like in the past.
To sum it up, I doubt that this is really the end of the Contax brand...