Just came from DMV (I swear time moved backwards), so am in a REALLY foul mood. You've been warned:
1. Size of firm has nothing to do with probability of continued success. If anything, as Guy suggests, larger can lead to taking one's eyes of the ball, diversifying to fast, decisions made due to internal politics vs. common sense, blah, blah, blah. More firms have been killed by over-expansion than any other single factor in history.
2. Lets see, Leica PHOTO product portfolio/cushion. Products currently made and selling:
- M7 (IIRC)
- M8.2
- Lenses for same
- Parts for same.
- Some bits and pieces of P&S gear in conjunction w/Panasonic.
- R system - dead, buried and obit published.
- S system - handful of prototypes, mockups and LOTS of internet-based hype/wishful thinking, Leicaphile mental 'self-gratification', LFI, uh, ahem, 'tests' (ROTFL) -- and Leicaphile-baiting by Zeiss/Nikon/Canonphiles - all of whom of are just as $%^& as the people they try and (all TOO easily BTW) bait.
Some cheap-seat advice: If you're a cast-iron, die-hard, 'logic is for skeptics', 'my underwear has Leica dots' Leicaphile -- make your life a lot easier and don't rise to the bait every time some $%^& flicks that big red button on your forehead. Watching it happen here, on FM, LUF, etc., is like watching someone fishing with hand-grenades. The first boom and sushi-toss is neat in sadistic way -- but it gets tragic very quickly.
If you regard the attached as one such 'flick', it isn't, but it case you think it is, just think of much better your blood pressure will be if you put your keyboard aside...
Oh, if you think the other unit heads at Leica are going to sit there and watch Dr. K, if need be, let the photo line feed of their product line R&D, etc ad infinitum, forget it. Valuable talent will leave IF that should look to be a trend within the firm.
3. Who gives a @#$%^ what Leica spent on R&D on the S2? They needed to spend what they needed to spend to get the #$%^& thing to where it is now. Same as Hassy did with the V, 200 and H systems, Mamiya with (pick a camera), Leaf, etc., etc. That was the EASY part. If anything Leica has it easy vs Hassy, Leaf, etc. Bang/$$ and integration in digital imaging tech has increased X fold since the other players broke ground in MFDBs.
4. Being established MEDIUM FORMAT vendors with established markets, established service systems, established dealers (see a pattern here) and established and SELLING products, Hassy/Phase/Mamiya/Leaf get EXPONENTIALLY more bang per R&D and S&M $$ spent than Leica does currently on the S series. Selling someone an M8.2 is a LITTLE different than selling and supporting someone with a MFDB. Whether Leica gets this latter point will the THE sole determinant of whether the S2 ever sees more than 12 pro gear safe's.
IF the S and it's required support structure becomes a success, then they will see that an improved 'R&D (and Selling & Marketing) leverage' factor - IF it becomes a success. However, the fewer units are sold, the lower your R&D and S&M leverage vs. the opposition.
4. "....Leica has survived this long despite the glass-1/2-empty growd, etc, etc, blah, sip Kool-Aid, dribble" is like saying "I survived to 43 yrs so far, thus, logically I will live forever." Staying alive DOES NOT correlate to success as a business - it correlates to an absence of terminal abject failure. That's it.
Being a former corporate M&A weasel and Street analyst, I LOVE business debates, etc, but I REALLY do wish people would put aside, as Guy says, the funny-tasting Kool-Aid AND the "I hate Leica for being, well, Leica" BS and look at things with some cold hard rationality.
Optimism is always nice and I DO hope they do well, but that doesn't mean I'm going to ignore the HUGE mountain they have to climb to get this baby selling well, nor the huge risk they've taken with this very technologically-tantalizing product.
There, that felt good. Very cathartic.