End of Contax

On April 12, 2005, Kyocera Corporation announced that it will terminate its famed Contax-branded camera business. Production of Contax camera equipment was terminated at the end of March 2005, and shipment of most Contax camera equipment is to end by Sept. 2005.

The reason given for the pullout was Kyocera’s inability to keep up with rapid market changes. Kyocera will continue to provide servicing of Contax equipment for up to 10 years. It will also continue operating Contax Club (camera club) and the Contax Salon photo gallery in Tokyo for the time being. (Update: The gallery and camera club were terminated in 2009.)

The English translation of their press release has a slight error in one paragraph.
http://global.kyocera.com/news/2005/0402.html

The sentence
“Although Carl Zeiss and Kyocera have entered into a long term co-operation regarding the development, production and sale of CONTAX-branded cameras, Kyocera has decided to terminate such business due to difficulties in catching up with the recent rapid market changes.”

should have been translated as:

“Although Carl Zeiss and Kyocera have cooperated for many years to develop, manufacture, and market CONTAX-branded cameras, Kyocera has decided to terminate this relationship due to difficulties in catching up with rapid market changes.”

I hope you (and they) can see the difference in the meaning and implication.

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Philbert Ono

Owner, operator, and Webmaster of PhotoGuide Japan (photojpn.org) and PHOTOGUIDE.JP.

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