[rollei_list] Re: ALPA Was Always Perfect
- From: "Douglas Shea" <dshea@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 23:51:26 -0600
-----Original Message-----
From: rollei_list-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:rollei_list-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Marc James Small
Sent: Thursday, April 14, 2005 4:54 PM
To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [rollei_list] Re: ALPA Was Always Perfect
At 09:45 PM 4/13/05 -0600, Douglas Shea wrote:
>I believe that Alpa, more so than any other camera
>manufacturer that I am aware of, built the camera that they believed was of
>the highest possible quality and then charged what was necessary to produce
>this camera profitably. The market must have responded favorably to some
>extent, for I doubt that it took Alpa forty years to discover they were
>losing money.
Doug
Thank you for a most delightful and courteous reply.
Nonetheless, the company simply had had to keep its mind on sales. ALPA was
a marginal, though much admired, product for its forty years of existence.
Marc
msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxx=20
Cha robh b=E0s fir gun ghr=E0s fir!
Thank you, as well Marc. I am sure that sales was of course their primary
concern, and in hindsight much has been said about what Alpa, and Zeiss as
well, "should" have done to survive. I'm not convinced that the survival of
either of these companies would have been easy; the market changed rapidly
and extremely fine build quality took a backseat to the emerging electronics
from Japan -- and the Japanese are excellent marketers and tough
competitors. FWIW, I read your book cover to cover and found it absolutely
fascinating -- congratulations to you and your partner for a job well done
and a book that needed to be written. Zeiss was an extremely complex
conglomerate and the war only complicated things further.
Cheers,
Doug
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