Re: [Leica] Leica-Users List Digest V2 #167

[Peterson_Art@hq.navsea.navy.mil]

     Mike,
     
     In addition to your thought below, that "there exists no cheaper M 
     body simply because it would steal sales from the M6 and hence, 
     precious profit from Leica," there was Stephen Gandy's assertion on 
     02/08/98, that "The CL almost certainly outsold the M series during 
     those years, therefore endangering the M...[and so]...Realizing that 
     it was a shrinking market, Leica sensibly decided to kill the small 
     camera to keep the M alive."  But I don't believe it!  This would be 
     bad economics and bad business.  You don't kill your hot sellers in 
     order to protect unpopular products---that's a plan for bankruptcy.  
     Rather, if anything, you just raise the prices of your hot sellers, 
     thereby maximizing profits.  If companies acted as you and Stephen 
     suggest, none of us would be driving cars today, because companies 
     would have killed the "horseless carriage" to protect buggy sales.
     
     Although I have no idea why Leica discontinued the CL (and frequently 
     bemoan its passage!), I cannot accept the reason you and Stephen have 
     suggested.
     
     Art Peterson
     

______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: [Leica] Leica-Users List Digest V2 #167
Author:  leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us at internet
Date:    2/13/98 8:20 AM


 Tom et al.,
 I'm not proposing an end to the M6, nor do I personally have any complaints
with the M6--except its cost, which keeps it a secret from 4/5ths of the 
photographic world including 95% of all students. I mean this literally--most 
younger photographers have never tried a Leica and have no inkling of the Leica 
"gestalt" that so fascinates us. 
 However, Leica is a lensmaking company, and its lenses are its true glory.
There has been a strong suspicion (no, I don't know) that there exists no 
cheaper M body simply because it would steal sales from the M6 and hence, 
precious profit from Leica. But things have changed since the days when 
rangefinder cameras were passe and the M4-2 was kept limping along by Leitz 
Midlands. Leica and the M line are flourishing today by comparison. And I really
don't think that a flourishing lensmaking company requires protection in this 
way. Better to have a half-as-expensive electronic body (which would still be 
very expensive, n.b.!) _in addition_ to the classic manual/mechanical M6, in 
order to sell more lenses--and attract more photographers into the Leica family.
But I'm not a businessman. I don't get to say these things. The decision is 
purely a business decision, and the company will do whatever will best protect 
and/or further its revenues.
 It is difficult on the LUG to separate real users who love the M6 as a tool
from those who are self-satisfied by its prestige as a status symbol. I suspect 
this is a powerful reason, these days, why the M6 in particular and Leica 
equipment in general sells as well as it does. This is surely something that 
requires protection as well (although with its point-and-shoots Leica sure seems
to have placed the prestige of the marque in some jeopardy. Again, not mine to 
say). 
     
Danny G. >>>For me, an M6-ified CL would inspire more devotion than the M6 
currently does, but I've never been dumbstruck by the M6 the way most users 
are. The CL though, I love like few other cameras<<<
     
 I would surely settle for an updated CLE as a less prestigious, electronic,
entry-level updating of the M concept, as long as such a camera accepted all or 
most of the actual Leica lenses--perhaps in a more limited range, say 35mm 
through 90mm? The world is very different today from the era in which the CLE 
is said to have "failed." (I honestly don't think we will ever know the real 
reason why it lasted only three years.) I'm totally in agreement with Danny on 
this one. It's a lovely, perfectly functional little camera--yet one that would 
not obtrude on the M6's unique handmade, tactile, high-quality "feel" and its 
top-of-the-line prestige.
 In the final analysis, we can guess that Solms will eventually produce an
electronic M-mount camera, and we should probably sympathize with the 
thorniness of their problem. The positioning of such a new camera in their 
product line and in the photographic market as a whole is doubtless a 
headache-inducing problem that is most likely occasioning considerable, um, 
"discussion" amongst those actually charged with the task. My own hope is that 
a more entry-level offering will cultivate more customers for the lens line, 
and yet not rob too many sales from the high-end offerings--i.e., that any such 
development will be all to the good. I wish them well. The HM was a shrewd and 
useful move; maybe they'll get the "M7" right, too.
     
 --Mike