An interesting story…

I was going to avoid the sensitive subject of the VB6 to VB.NET upgrade for a while – you know, get my feet wet before tackling anything difficult – but my hand has been forced. Robert Scoble posted a story about the competition between Canon and Nikon that made me think of that particular controversy. The quotes that I found most interesting were:

So, how did Canon get in? Easy, they changed their lens mount. Whoa, wouldn’t that piss off professionals? After all, do you know how much a 300mm F2.8 lens is? About $4000. Wouldn’t people rebel against “lock in?” Especially “lock in” that demonstrated the company didn’t see much value in keeping their lens mount the same?

And:

But, do you think that professional photographers didn’t hate Canon for changing their lens mount and taking an approach toward its customers that said “we’re gonna obsolete you, and make all your old stuff worthless so we can make a better product?” Heck yes! But, funny thing about customers. They buy a better product.

I don’t draw any particular conclusions from the story (after all, Nikon could have just improved their autofocus without changing their lens mount), but it does have interesting intersections. Anyway, I’m sure I’ll have more to say about this as we go along.

One thought on “An interesting story…

  1. Dave

    A $3000 lens investment and a half a million dollars of instantly obsolete code are not comparable 🙂

    Reply

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