Gasman57 wrote:
Minolta, then Konica, then Sony. How did that work out?
Konica was the oldest photography company in Japan... actually was founded before and older than Eastman Kodak. Before WWII, the Japanese camera industry was thriving, but largely unknown outside the country. Konica (actually Konishi and then Konishiroku a the time) was essentially the "Kodak of Japan"... the dominant player in the market. In fact, there was a lot of exchange between the two companies. George Eastman visited the company in Japan, and founder Rokusaburo Sugiura visited Kodak in America.
Konica exited the SLR market in the late 1980s, but continued making other types of cameras. Rumor was that Konica had developed a replacement for their manual focus/mechanical aperture K/AR lenses... a new, larger bayonet mount with electronic connectivity to support AF and aperture control. But rather than launch a system based on the new mount themselves, Konica reportedly sold or licensed it to Sigma, who use it today in their SA-mount cameras and lenses.
Konica essentially bought Minolta in 2003, forming Konica-Minolta. While it was termed a "merger" at the time, Konica brought the money while Minolta brought the technology, including their A-mount DSLRs and rudimentary mirrorless designs.
But in 2006 Konica-Minolta sold off the photography division to Sony, who kept the SLR/DSLR tech for themselves, but immediately sold the well-respected Minolta (now Konica-Minolta) light meter division to Kenko, who have run with it ever since.
Of course, Sony has done quite well with their purchase.
And Konica-Minolta continues to be a big player in office equipment, printing, healthcare and measuring instrumentation.
Maybe the same thing will happen with Olympus. JIP has continued to sell Vaio laptop computers, a division they bought from Sony. But JIP has bought, broken up and sold off other companies in the past.