Today we have a huge news! Sony and Olympus have signed an agreement where Sony will become Olympus largest shareholder. And they already anticipated that they will work together in the medical and camera business. What this means for the future of the NEX and Micro Four Thirds system has yet to be seen. But I think this may not be good news for Panasonic…
Just my two cent. Sony urgently needs lenses for the NEX system while Olympus needs the Sony sensor for their cameras. They may keep challenging each other with their own systems but saving costs on the development front.
Full rpess release with strategy goals is available here (.pdf).
14 Responses
Awesome news ! Sony seems very determined to succeed in the camera market !
Pssst Olympus… Sony managed to put a viewfinder in the corner of their NEX…Think you might wander over to their R&D and have a squiz? Just a thought…
“They may keep challenging each other with their own systems but saving costs on the development front.”
Then again, they may just carve up the pie in whatever way they think will maximize profit and minimize competition. As the weaker partner (the one that’s been going around begging for investors) Olympus is bound to be on the short end.
I sincerely hope a viable alternate to Sony shapes up soon. This Sony stranglehood over imaging will only lead to lack of innovation.
I don’t think Sony and “uninnovative” go together.
You may have a point there. Now, how many iterations did it take for them to arrive at the NEX-6 from the 5? They will not hesitate to “innovate” through a plethora of models. 🙂
What a silly comment. Sony have released less NEX stills cameras than Olympus alone have released m43s and less than Panasonic alone have released m43s and the same number of bodies as Samsung have released NX. In that shorter number of refreshes they have evolved at a much faster rate than any of the others (not a comparison of how good each are, just a comparison of evolutionary steps).
Sony Bodies 8 Lenses 10 (not including refreshed lenses)
Olympus Bodies 10 Lenses 9 (not including refreshed lenses)
Panasonic Bodies 12 Lenses 15 (refreshes included as FL changed)
Samsung Bodies 8 Lenses 10 (not including refreshed lenses)
Body generations
GF 4th gen
G 4th gen
GH 3rd gen
GX 1st gen
NEX 3 3rd gen
NEX 5 3rd gen
NEX 6 1st gen
NEX 7 1st gen
EP 3rd gen
EPL 4th gen
EPM 2nd gen
OMD 1st gen
NXxx 2nd gen (4 models NX5, 10 and 11 being 1st gen)
NXxxx 2nd gen (NX200 and 210 being 2nd gen)
NXxxxx 1st gen
well, true, we saw many “e-pl*” cameras.
But m43 is one year older than Sony E-system, which partially justifies the number of number of cameras produced.
As far as lenses are considered, Sony is lagging way behind the other two: both Pana and Oly have a set of lenses which is better than the Sony’s, and the two put together now form a very good lens system. Sony will be able to cope only with the help of Sigma, Zeiss, maybe Oly, and in any case not before a couple of years, and not with the same size-quality ratio
So Olympus will switch to E-mount? Gooooood. Finally larger sensors 🙂 Let Panasonic play with themselves.
Bring good stuff Oly!
Full Frame mirrorless! And great APS-C gear! Can’t wait!
no, wrong, it is nothing to do with M4/3 or NEX business.
Oly and Sony will establish a new company that develops and produces some NBI(narrow banding imaging) products by end of next April,really, that’s all for now.
and Endoscope division of Oly (that is the core business of Oly) kept inside of Olympus and Sony will not be able to touch or speak about it.
so, actually this captial alliace is not bad for Oly not much restricting it and Oly will not lose its total freedom and keep most of its independence.
now, it is becoming Sony-Oly-Nikon group vs Canon-Pana group patent war.
Just MY two cents – Sony has some glass, and has worked on that…
Exactly, on a percentage of bodies to lenses released Sony, Panasonic and Samsung are equal, Olympus are lagging behind. Fuji is on top with 5 lenses to 2 bodies and Canon 2 lenses to 1 body and Nikon 5 lenses to 3 bodies (though those last 3 are still on more or less 1st gen bodies).
That’s great news, if there is some thing like sony full frame sensor + Olympus pro body support M lens. lol