Tamron is capable of amazing designs.
- The Batis line is reported to have been designed by Tamron
- It is unclear who designed the most recent GM lenses (Zeiss appears to be out)
- If it was Tamron, Sony better make sure, that they keep a dominant position in Tamron
- This would definitely profit Sony users
nightnight wrote:
Would never have anticipated running into a fellow D2 player on FM, of all places.
Admittedly, I haven't played in a few years. I played Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 when they came out on Xbox. Bought myself my first gaming computer in over a decade last fall. I was thinking of getting back into Destiny 2, but then found it was ending.
Currently, I am in the top 4% on Black Ops 7. Not bad for the few hours a week I get to play.
I hope Bungie gets their act together, though. I have been a fan of their games since Halo Combat Evolved came out in the early 2000s. It would be a shame to see them go under.
gdanmitchell wrote:
I still think that it won’t be a lot longer before a Chinese photographic equipment company “does a Sony on Sony,” equalling their quality and doing so at significantly lower prices.
Hold on. Are you actually rooting for this? Are you aware that the CCP’s official industrial policy openly calls for the forced deindustrialization of the West? Their grip on rare earths is not an accident, it's an implementation of the long term strategy. Are you aware that many Chinese manufacturers operate at a loss by design, with the government closing the liquidity gap through subsidized loans? Are you aware that Chinese companies are instructed to avoid buying Western products whenever possible?
China, by the way, could easily be the underlying reason for this merger. Japanese automakers are already openly calling for government-assisted industry consolidation to defend against the Chinese onslaught. This has nothing to do with competitiveness. Privately funded companies, with obligations to shareholders and operating under strict labor, intellectual-property, and environmental laws, cannot possibly compete with quasi-governmental companies perpetually funded by the state, operating under loose labor laws, stage-assited with industrial espionage, and relaxed environmental restrictions.
I agree that China doesn't play fair, but I also do think it's only a matter of time before a Chinese company makes a strong photgraphy centric camera system.
Take a look at what has happened on the video side with the DJI 4D or Z Cam.
old-gregg wrote:
If the speculation is correct, that may be a brilliant move by Effissimo Capital Management: gradually acquire a substantial stake and then force Sony's had to acquire Tamron to secure the key supplier.
I don't see Effissimo's involvement in Tamron as a plus. They target companies where internal problems are simmering.
DWOfPaul wrote:
I agree that China doesn't play fair, but I also do think it's only a matter of time before a Chinese company makes a strong photgraphy centric camera system.
Take a look at what has happened on the video side with the DJI 4D or Z Cam.
The leading Chinese camera manufacturer is Hasselblad, with Leica soon to join. This is not going to end well. I see two possible ways out:
Chinese financial system crashes. Subsidized loans facilitate the proliferation of "zombie companies". Their share of the Chinese economy is climbing fast. The CCP's bet is that Western manufacturing collapses first. They see it as a race.
Chinese economy is completely decoupled from the West. A new iron curtain. We are making some baby steps in this direction. DJI and Huawei are already banned. Nvidia is not selling chips to them. But that's not nearly enough.
old-gregg wrote:
Chinese economy is completely decoupled from the West. A new iron curtain. We are making some baby steps in this direction. DJI and Huawei are already banned. Nvidia is not selling chips to them. But that's not nearly enough.
Unfortunately, I don't think this is going to help. At best, it may slow China down a bit. China has a population of 1.4 billion people. The US has a population of 342 million people. They can already throw more manpower at problems than us, and their internal economy is likely to eventually eclipse ours. We may even end up hurting ourselves in the process. For example, there is no consumer drone company in the US making comparable drones to DJI.
I don't blame people for buying the products that are available to them. Not everyone can afford the top of the line glass from companies like Sony, Nikon, and Canon. You can't sell cameras or lenses if no one buys into the system because it's too expensive in the first place. Nikon could definitely help the situation by getting Sigma FF lenses on Z mount though, and Sony could help by removing restrictions on Tamron and Sigma lenses. Sony, Nikon, and Canon could also help by making some cheaper native options.
old-gregg wrote:
The leading Chinese camera manufacturer is Hasselblad, with Leica soon to join. This is not going to end well. I see two possible ways out:
Chinese financial system crashes. Subsidized loans facilitate the proliferation of "zombie companies". Their share of the Chinese economy is climbing fast. The CCP's bet is that Western manufacturing collapses first. They see it as a race.
Chinese economy is completely decoupled from the West. A new iron curtain. We are making some baby steps in this direction. DJI and Huawei are already banned. Nvidia is not selling chips to them. But that's not nearly enough.
Literally no capable high-level engineers remain in American manufacturing. We have already completely decoupled our economies, just not in the way you think, and are now complete slaves to Chinese fab.
We have designers out the wazoo, but what do they do? Dream up products, send their rough drafts to their Chinese counterparts, and have THEM figure out the electrical, mechanical, and all other aspects of the engineering and manufacturing processes.
snapsy wrote:
This is an interesting notion to ponder. Playing armchair CEO, you wouldn't think Sony would have Tamron stop making third-party lenses for competing systems, since that business likely represents a good chunk of their revenue and so it wouldn't make sense to pay a premium for the business without those markets. But the notion that Sony would be selling lenses for competing systems is hard to fathom as well. The idea that this is a defensive move to protect a key supplier makes sense then.
They do sell sensors to competing systems. Why not lenses? If they make more in the third party business than they would gain by diminishing the competitiion, then selling to the third parties makes sense.
In a literal way, Sony owns part of every sale that uses their compnents. Every Nikon or Leica sold with a Sony sensor accrues to Sony profitability.
RoamingScott wrote:
Literally no capable high-level engineers remain in American manufacturing. We have already completely decoupled our economies, just not in the way you think, and are now complete slaves to Chinese fab.
We have designers out the wazoo, but what do they do? Dream up products, send their rough drafts to their Chinese counterparts, and have THEM figure out the electrical, mechanical, and all other aspects of the engineering and manufacturing processes.
My experience is that we still have very good electrical and mechanical engineers in the US. Manufacturing, we have gotten further and further away from though. Even if you engineer an electronics device in the US and use a CM in the US to manufacture it, most of the low level parts are coming from overseas. This is either genius or insanity. On one hand, we are not wasting our limited mental and physical capacity making parts that are extremely well known on how to make. On the other hand, it makes us dependent on other countries to build anything.
Also, if your bulding a product that will be sold internationally. It often just makes sense to manufacture overseas, since why ship the components to the US, to then ship the final devices back out. Especially if the US is not the majority of your sales market.
I think it’s a little early to draw conclusions. An acquisition doesn’t necessarily mean Tamron would stop selling lenses for other mounts. It depends on how Sony chooses to operate the business.
chiron wrote:
They do sell sensors to competing systems. Why not lenses? If they make more in the third party business than they would gain by diminishing the competitiion, then selling to the third parties makes sense.
In a literal way, Sony owns part of every sale that uses their compnents. Every Nikon or Leica sold with a Sony sensor accrues to Sony profitability.
Sony Semiconductor is an independent division and corporation owned by Sony, organized specifically so that they would not compete with Sony's imaging customers, ie to give them the operational flexibility to sell image sensors to anyone.
