Lack of refinement hurts entry-level DSLRs
in [Digital Cameras]
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From: stephe_k on 24 Mar 2010 13:07 Neil Harrington wrote: > "Chris H" <chris(a)phaedsys.org> wrote in message > news:oB6c2LJU7hqLFACK(a)phaedsys.demon.co.uk... >> Actually they are designed by engineers to a specification drawn up my >> marketing people. The specifications are also worked out by the >> strategists. > > All of which seems reasonable and efficient to me in so far as it is true, > but it's true only to a limited extent. Obviously the SLR did not appear > because "marketing people" wanted it, or the focal plane shutter, or the > pentaprism, or the zoom lens, and so on and so forth. Engineers and > designers create products; marketing people do not. Obviously the marketing people don't do the engineering. I didn't think I needed to explain that but obviously now I see I needed to for some people. Design and engineer are two different things. But I can promise you the DSLR came into existence because the marketing people PUSHED to have the company spend the money to develop it after they did market studies to see how many people wanted them etc. Without the marketing people PUSHING to have the $$$ spent to engineer these, they wouldn't exist. I also would bet the marketing people do DESIGN what the end product should look like as well. They also tell them which features need to be included, which to my way of thinking, they have DESIGNED the product and have someone else engineer it for them. Clearly the engineers dumb down the lower end products to make people want to buy the more expensive models. Just like it costs no more for Intel to make a 2.0 and a 2.8Ghz version of the same chip and why people over clock the cheaper ones. It's marketing. Stephanie
From: Neil Harrington on 24 Mar 2010 16:55 <stephe_k(a)yahoo.com> wrote in message news:hodgtp$hp9$1(a)news.albasani.net... > Neil Harrington wrote: >> "Chris H" <chris(a)phaedsys.org> wrote in message >> news:oB6c2LJU7hqLFACK(a)phaedsys.demon.co.uk... > >>> Actually they are designed by engineers to a specification drawn up my >>> marketing people. The specifications are also worked out by the >>> strategists. >> >> All of which seems reasonable and efficient to me in so far as it is >> true, but it's true only to a limited extent. Obviously the SLR did not >> appear because "marketing people" wanted it, or the focal plane shutter, >> or the pentaprism, or the zoom lens, and so on and so forth. Engineers >> and designers create products; marketing people do not. > > > Obviously the marketing people don't do the engineering. I didn't think I > needed to explain that but obviously now I see I needed to for some > people. Design and engineer are two different things. As I said. > > But I can promise you the DSLR came into existence because the marketing > people PUSHED to have the company spend the money to develop it after they > did market studies to see how many people wanted them etc. Without the > marketing people PUSHING to have the $$$ spent to engineer these, they > wouldn't exist. I also would bet the marketing people do DESIGN what the > end product should look like as well. No offense, but you are seriously ignorant of DSLR history. The earliest DSLR as far as I know was the Kodak DSC of 1991, a Kodak sensor (with a whopping ONE megapixel!) in a much-modified Nikon body. It sold for about $25,000. Now if you think something like that had anything to do with "marketing people" you must have some kind of hugely exaggerated faith in the power of "marketing people"! The Nikon D1 of 1999 has been called "the world's first practical DSLR," with resolution increased to a generous 2.7 megapixels and the price down to a nice affordable $5,000. This is still well outside the range of a typical digicam buyer, and it's safe to say that the D1 like its predecessors was a camera designed BY camera people FOR camera people, not by "marketing people" for general consumers. Engineers and designers are responsible for early developments in new technologies and machines, often for the use of specialists and/or special purposes. Only when the type of product becomes commonplace enough to be sold to the masses do your "marketing people" come into the picture. > > They also tell them which features need to be included, which to my way of > thinking, they have DESIGNED the product and have someone else engineer it > for them. Clearly the engineers dumb down the lower end products to make > people want to buy the more expensive models. Just like it costs no more > for Intel to make a 2.0 and a 2.8Ghz version of the same chip and why > people over clock the cheaper ones. It's marketing. THAT is, yes. But it logically follows in the manufacture of CPUs. Intel used to (presumably still does) test individual chips as they came from the wafer, throw out the rejects and "bin" the good ones according to the speed they were tested safe for, then price the assembled CPUs accordingly. If demand was higher for the lower-priced chips, they would just package higher-tested ones that they had in surplus for the lower speed to meet that demand. Similarly, some AMD quad-core chips would have one bad core and so be finished as triple-core CPUs, sold at a lower price, and if demand for those became very high because of the lower price AMD would (reportedly) just disable one core of a good quad-core chip and sell it as a triple-core. All of which makes perfect marketing sense. The manufacturer wants to maximize his profits, in whatever is the best way to do it. The buyer of a triple-core CPU isn't being cheated because his chip actually was a good quad-core to begin with. He's getting what he paid for.
From: stephe_k on 24 Mar 2010 20:03 Neil Harrington wrote: > <stephe_k(a)yahoo.com> wrote in message news:hodgtp$hp9$1(a)news.albasani.net... >> Neil Harrington wrote: >>> "Chris H" <chris(a)phaedsys.org> wrote in message >>> news:oB6c2LJU7hqLFACK(a)phaedsys.demon.co.uk... >>>> Actually they are designed by engineers to a specification drawn up my >>>> marketing people. The specifications are also worked out by the >>>> strategists. >>> All of which seems reasonable and efficient to me in so far as it is >>> true, but it's true only to a limited extent. Obviously the SLR did not >>> appear because "marketing people" wanted it, or the focal plane shutter, >>> or the pentaprism, or the zoom lens, and so on and so forth. Engineers >>> and designers create products; marketing people do not. >> >> Obviously the marketing people don't do the engineering. I didn't think I >> needed to explain that but obviously now I see I needed to for some >> people. Design and engineer are two different things. > > As I said. > >> But I can promise you the DSLR came into existence because the marketing >> people PUSHED to have the company spend the money to develop it after they >> did market studies to see how many people wanted them etc. Without the >> marketing people PUSHING to have the $$$ spent to engineer these, they >> wouldn't exist. I also would bet the marketing people do DESIGN what the >> end product should look like as well. > > No offense, but you are seriously ignorant of DSLR history. The earliest > DSLR as far as I know was the Kodak DSC of 1991, a Kodak sensor (with a > whopping ONE megapixel!) in a much-modified Nikon body. It sold for about > $25,000. Now if you think something like that had anything to do with > "marketing people" you must have some kind of hugely exaggerated faith in > the power of "marketing people"! > So you think some engineers took it upon themselves to develop that image sensor and make up the product and THEN the marketing people get to try to sell them? If you believe this you are "truly ignorant" of how things work in the real world. Until it was determined there would be a market for that product, how many units they could sell at a given price point, what it would ~cost to make them etc, they would never have spent the money for the research to make it. I highly doubt there was a group of people at kodak that said "Hey wouldn't it be cool to make a digital SLR?" and for free they worked to develop a prototype, to then pitch it to the marketing people. And in case you don't understand, the people who make marketing decisions goes all the way up to the CEO of the company. Again if you think the people in the labs decide what they are going to design for their company to sell, you really don't understand how this works. Stephanie
From: Laurence Payne on 24 Mar 2010 20:20 On Wed, 24 Mar 2010 20:05:10 -0400, "Neil Harrington" <never(a)home.com> wrote: >But for seven or eight years in the '40s Kodak also made its quite elaborate >Ektra camera and lenses, intended to compete with Leica and Contax and >generally more advanced than either (if less reliable, unfortunately). They >only made a couple thousand or so, sold 'em for $700 each (BIG money in >those years; you could almost buy a new Ford or Chevy for that), and >reportedly lost $300 on every one they sold. Surely you could not say the >Ektra was designed by "marketing people." It was encouraged by them though. Presumably because they felt such a prestige product, although it lost money, would enhance Kodak's reputation so in the longer term much MORE money came in.
From: Neil Harrington on 24 Mar 2010 20:26
<stephe_k(a)yahoo.com> wrote in message news:hoe99k$pcg$1(a)news.albasani.net... > Neil Harrington wrote: >> <stephe_k(a)yahoo.com> wrote in message >> news:hodgtp$hp9$1(a)news.albasani.net... >>> Neil Harrington wrote: >>>> "Chris H" <chris(a)phaedsys.org> wrote in message >>>> news:oB6c2LJU7hqLFACK(a)phaedsys.demon.co.uk... >>>>> Actually they are designed by engineers to a specification drawn up my >>>>> marketing people. The specifications are also worked out by the >>>>> strategists. >>>> All of which seems reasonable and efficient to me in so far as it is >>>> true, but it's true only to a limited extent. Obviously the SLR did not >>>> appear because "marketing people" wanted it, or the focal plane >>>> shutter, or the pentaprism, or the zoom lens, and so on and so forth. >>>> Engineers and designers create products; marketing people do not. >>> >>> Obviously the marketing people don't do the engineering. I didn't think >>> I needed to explain that but obviously now I see I needed to for some >>> people. Design and engineer are two different things. >> >> As I said. >> >>> But I can promise you the DSLR came into existence because the marketing >>> people PUSHED to have the company spend the money to develop it after >>> they did market studies to see how many people wanted them etc. Without >>> the marketing people PUSHING to have the $$$ spent to engineer these, >>> they wouldn't exist. I also would bet the marketing people do DESIGN >>> what the end product should look like as well. >> >> No offense, but you are seriously ignorant of DSLR history. The earliest >> DSLR as far as I know was the Kodak DSC of 1991, a Kodak sensor (with a >> whopping ONE megapixel!) in a much-modified Nikon body. It sold for about >> $25,000. Now if you think something like that had anything to do with >> "marketing people" you must have some kind of hugely exaggerated faith in >> the power of "marketing people"! >> > > > So you think some engineers took it upon themselves to develop that image > sensor and make up the product and THEN the marketing people get to try to > sell them? If you believe this you are "truly ignorant" of how things work > in the real world. I can't imagine "the marketing people" had anything to do with the design OR selling of a very limited-production $25,000 camera. I think they were out of that loop entirely. To take a more extreme example: how many of Rockwell's "marketing people" do you suppose were involved in the design of the space shuttle? |