Was "open standard" by Olympus a mistake?

Olympus make a big deal about making Four Thirds and Micro Four Thirds "open standards". There was marketing benefit to Oly when these standards were announced, since the concept somewhat deflected concerns that Olympus was too small to flesh out a competitive new camera systems on its own. Some buyers were attacted by the ideal of an open system too.

But there are drawbacks to the Olympus approach. Four Thirds really can't be called anything but an Olympus system. Third-party lenses made for the mount don't count. They're no different than lenses adapted to other system mounts. Pana/Leica's brief rebadging of an Olympus camera wasn't really an expansion of the system, and that experiment wasn't repeated.

It's a little different with Micro Four Thirds. Panasonic actually had the first MFT camera and lenses on the market half a year before Olympus got off the ground. Panasonic arguably remains the leader in MFT with more cameras and lenses for the mount, and with an advanced video camera for the mount coming.

On one hand, you can say that Olympus benefits because the mount got credibility much more quickly than Four Thirds did, and more choices in the pipeline more quickly attracted more buyers.

On the other hand, the main competitor to Olympus has been its biggest partner. Olympus' leadership in MFT is in doubt, and there are worried discussions about how well Olympus can compete against a much larger competitor with a much deeper technical bench.

One of the big initial groups buying into MFT was/is existing Olympus 4/3 system owners. To the extent that Panasonic has made inroads with this user group, Olympus has diluted its most loyal and easiest sell target audience. And there's a 4/3 user faction with concern that Olympus is spread too thin and that the 4/3 mount is taking a back seat to MFT with respect to Olympus' R&D efforts.

The "open standard" really is just two manufacturers. Lenses and adapters that third parties market to MFT users are already starting to be offered in mounts for other mirrorless systems. My question is, today and into the future, was the "open standard" strategy a net benefit for Olympus or a strategic error? I'm not sure myself, and a balance sheet for MFT products sold to-date isn't available to settle the question.

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BJ Nicholls
SLC, UT

You really lost me there.

So what is wrong with being able to use my lenses on cameras from multiple manufactures? If Olympus drops the ball this year I can switch to Panasonic. Or maybe next year Olympus will come out with a killer camera. It's easy to switch and gives us more choice. That is what I like best...choice.

There are at least 17 lenses for m43 right now. What other format has released that amount of lenses in tha short a time? Yes, some overlap, but that is called giving users a choice. Look at how many camera bodies there are in that short period too...more choice.

To the extent that it seems Olympus have more or less abandoned 4/3 development in favor of m4/3, I would imagine it's a net gain. Even if Panasonic are selling more, Olympus would be making even less sales than they are now if they stuck with 4/3. Let's be honest--4/3 was a terrific idea that didn't quite deliver in execution. Too many compromises, not enough benefits. m4/3 has already delivered more on the promise of smaller systems to go with the smaller-than-APS-C/FF-sensor in its 2 years or so than regular 4/3 has in its many more years of existence.

Like you said, it remains to be seen if Olympus are up to the challenge of keeping up with Panasonic, but the alternative would've been to have a proprietary system with less market appeal. I think in the end the openness of m4/3 is what will keep them afloat as long as they focus efforts on it. They won't do this, but what they really need to do is completely abandon new 4/3 development and make m4/3 the best it can possibly be. They need to be realistic and see that 4/3 as it stands can't compete with rival DSLR systems, but m4/3 is well positioned as the first and therefore most fleshed-out mirrorless system.

i dont see a big future in OLYMPUS ...if they continue so...

i had 2 olympsu m43 cameras and 2 lens (17mm 2.8 - and 14-45mm) but i found panasonic always 2 step ahead (my GF1 was a lot of better camera then the my EP1) the 20mm 1.7 miles ahead then the 17mm f2.8

my GH1 was a better camera then my EPL1

GH1 and now GH2 its making the bridge between this 2 companies still longer....

very hard future for olympus.... (on my eyes the only very good products was the 9-18mm but too late....)

also open standard mean that you can use olympus lens also on panasonic Bodies...pity a panosonic use will think many times before buy a non stabilized lens for his camera-......

BJN said:

Four Thirds really can't be called anything but an Olympus system. Third-party lenses made for the mount don't count. They're no different than lenses adapted to other system mounts. Pana/Leica's brief rebadging of an Olympus camera wasn't really an expansion of the system, and that experiment wasn't repeated.

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Perhaps Four Thirds was not open enough.... look at all the announced members that never through with much product. That tells me that Olympus may have erected too many barriers.

BJN said:

On one hand, you can say that Olympus benefits because the mount got credibility much more quickly than Four Thirds did, and more choices in the pipeline more quickly attracted more buyers.

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In my opinion, Olympus needs to identify a more compelling unique selling proposition that IBIS, and smaller lenses, to compete with Panasonic.

Small, slow zooms is not a great way to go.

And, if they go for sealed m4/3rd lenses, then they will alienate their 4/3rd lens customer base, and threaten all that investment in creating those products.

I am hoping they build mirrorless 4/3rd dSLR style sealed-bodies to support their sealed 4/3rd glass.....

BJN said:

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BJ Nicholls
SLC, UT

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--
'Photos are what remain when the memories are forgotten' - Angular Mo.

BJN said:

Olympus make a big deal about making Four Thirds and Micro Four Thirds "open standards". There was marketing benefit to Oly when these standards were announced, since the concept somewhat deflected concerns that Olympus was too small to flesh out a competitive new camera systems on its own. Some buyers were attacted by the ideal of an open system too.

But there are drawbacks to the Olympus approach. Four Thirds really can't be called anything but an Olympus system. Third-party lenses made for the mount don't count. They're no different than lenses adapted to other system mounts. Pana/Leica's brief rebadging of an Olympus camera wasn't really an expansion of the system, and that experiment wasn't repeated.

It's a little different with Micro Four Thirds. Panasonic actually had the first MFT camera and lenses on the market half a year before Olympus got off the ground. Panasonic arguably remains the leader in MFT with more cameras and lenses for the mount, and with an advanced video camera for the mount coming.

On one hand, you can say that Olympus benefits because the mount got credibility much more quickly than Four Thirds did, and more choices in the pipeline more quickly attracted more buyers.

On the other hand, the main competitor to Olympus has been its biggest partner. Olympus' leadership in MFT is in doubt,

Click to expand...

Olympus never had a leadership in m4/3 because their market strategy and product line up is flawed and too narrow.

• The start was too late.
• The start was too low profiled with a half baked, feature missing entry (EP-1)
• The first body was a comparatively bad performer (AF)
• The product line relies too much upon the PEN mythos and retro style
• The product perspective is too inconclusive with the cheapest model having the best IQ
• There is still no enthusiast model with build-in EVF and tiltable LCD, whereas Panasonic is about to release the fourth model of this class
• Olympus has no IS in the lenses so the glass is not attractive to Panasonic customers
• Uncomplete implementation of good features (attachable EVF without auto-switch between LCD and EVF)
• Very slow initial build-up of the lens system (in comparison)
• Very slow lens roadmap (in comparison)
• No unique, differentiating lens line-up
• Still no perspective on other body concepts than PEN style

This has nothing to do with open standards. It is simply poor product and communication strategy.

BJN said:

and there are worried discussions about how well Olympus can compete against a much larger competitor with a much deeper technical bench.

One of the big initial groups buying into MFT was/is existing Olympus 4/3 system owners. To the extent that Panasonic has made inroads with this user group, Olympus has diluted its most loyal and easiest sell target audience. And there's a 4/3 user faction with concern that Olympus is spread too thin and that the 4/3 mount is taking a back seat to MFT with respect to Olympus' R&D efforts.

The "open standard" really is just two manufacturers. Lenses and adapters that third parties market to MFT users are already starting to be offered in mounts for other mirrorless systems. My question is, today and into the future, was the "open standard" strategy a net benefit for Olympus or a strategic error? I'm not sure myself, and a balance sheet for MFT products sold to-date isn't available to settle the question.

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BJ Nicholls
SLC, UT

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Thomas

I'm not looking at what's best for you or me, I'm trying to look at it from Olympus' perspective. I initially got an EP-1 myself, but now I have a couple of Panasonic MFT bodies, a few Panny lenses, and just one Oly lens. That's why I wonder about the net benefit to Olympus.

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BJ Nicholls
SLC, UT

I'm personally not sold that 4/3 was a terrific idea. Like you said, too few benefits. Micro Four Thirds is a much better extension of the smaller-but-very-good sensor idea. Smaller cameras, smaller lenses (within limits), and a mount that opens up a lot of adapter possibilities too.

Is the demise of 4/3 a consensus view for system users? I don't follow it closely enough to know.

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BJ Nicholls
SLC, UT

You describe exactly the net effect of Olympus' product strategy.

The fact that the Olympus lenses do not have IS, means that they are not attractive for Panasonic customers. And even customers who own bodies from both brands prefer Panasonic lenses because they are in part better and have no disadvantage on their Panasonic bodies.

BJN said:

I'm not looking at what's best for you or me, I'm trying to look at it from Olympus' perspective. I initially got an EP-1 myself, but now I have a couple of Panasonic MFT bodies, a few Panny lenses, and just one Oly lens. That's why I wonder about the net benefit to Olympus.

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BJ Nicholls
SLC, UT

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--
Thomas

Angular Mo said:

Perhaps Four Thirds was not open enough.... look at all the announced members that never through with much product. That tells me that Olympus may have erected too many barriers.

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I don't thing barriers prevented wider adoption. I think that when manufacturers look at follow-on lens and accessory sales, the idea of being a me-too player for a "standard" mount has little appeal. Just look at Samsung and Sony with their own mirrorless mounts.

Angular Mo said:

In my opinion, Olympus needs to identify a more compelling unique selling proposition that IBIS, and smaller lenses, to compete with Panasonic.

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That's hard to do. If Olympus was the first and only MFT system, they'd have had a really unique sales proposition. Instead, they shared it with a powerful competitor.

Angular Mo said:

Small, slow zooms is not a great way to go.

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Big, fast lenses on tiny cameras is?

Angular Mo said:

And, if they go for sealed m4/3rd lenses, then they will alienate their 4/3rd lens customer base, and threaten all that investment in creating those products.

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If 4/3 and MFT lenses worked equally well on both mounts, the versatility would increase my interest in 4/3 DSLRs. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

Angular Mo said:

I am hoping they build mirrorless 4/3rd dSLR style sealed-bodies to support their sealed 4/3rd glass.....

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Not being a 4/3 user, I'm not sure what the merits would be. If it makes sense for Olympus, every DSLR manufacturer will do it.

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BJ Nicholls
SLC, UT

No it was a brave move and the Oly and Pany alliance is great, the downside in no other manufacturers are joining and prefer the Larger APS-C sensor which is a pity as the 43/m43 is quite adequate for normal needs.

Manufacturers prefer there own mounts and sensors to try to muscle more out of the market.

To expect a common mount (m43) by the majority is not going to happen.
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John

http://boyzo.smugmug.com
http://picasaweb.google.com/john.boyzo

I think the answer to your question is that u4/3 is not an "open" standard in any meaningful sense of the term. An open standard is one for which

1) The specs are freely available without charge (e.g. on the Olympus web site), and detailed enough to permit the manufacture of interoperable products.
and

2) Anyone is free to market an interoperable product (e.g. an autofocus lens) without paying a membership fee.*

(* There are reasonable exceptions to this, e.g. standards like USB and Bluetooth where the consortium has set up a formal certification process for the express purpose of testing interoperability. Even then, the certification process is not required unless the company wants to use the trademarked logo on their product. It's also just a good idea.)

Now, you might think the u4/3s companies would be crazy to allow such a thing, and you might be right. But in any case, the standard is not open. When a company calls its standard "open," it doesn't really mean open. It means they hope their standard will become dominant in the marketplace. And it sounds nice.

Fact is Olympus is too small to compete with Canon and Nikon. So without Pana on board m4/3 would have very hard time getting off the ground. 4/3 is dying out not because it was an open standard, but because it didn't have a compelling enough upside compared to Nikon & Canon offerings.

Another fact is that E-PL1 is the best selling m4/3 camera. Without Pany 20mm available, I wouldn't buy E-PL1. I am sure many others as well.

Fact is that EVIL will be the market share battleground of the nearest future. By having two makers instead of 1, Pany and Oly are building a nice lead going forward with lenses available for the system. This means that Pany&Oly would be able to fight for the market leadership instead of surviving in a niche.

One can question Oly&Pany pricing strategy or lens building strategy, but it's clear that at this point having a joint standard only helps them. That could be a different story once the EVIL market saturates, but we are still very far from that moment.

tgutgu said:

Olympus never had a leadership in m4/3 because their market strategy and product line up is flawed and too narrow.

• The start was too late.

Click to expand...

Only because their open standard partner beat them by half a year.

tgutgu said:

• The start was too low profiled with a half baked, feature missing entry (EP-1)

Click to expand...

Only in comparison to expectations set by the G1

tgutgu said:

• The first body was a comparatively bad performer (AF)

Click to expand...

Ditto.

tgutgu said:

• The product line relies too much upon the PEN mythos and retro style

Click to expand...

That's marketing and it's been very effective. Any actual PEN heritage is extremely tenuous. Styling doesn't preempt performance.

tgutgu said:

• The product perspective is too inconclusive with the cheapest model having the best IQ

Click to expand...

That's inevitable in the digital camera cycle. Nikon's D7000 has the highest resolution, newest sensor because it has to get a forward-looking spec. The EPL1 makes the same sense.

tgutgu said:

• There is still no enthusiast model with build-in EVF and tiltable LCD, whereas Panasonic is about to release the fourth model of this class

Click to expand...

That's the open standard at work. Olympus can't just crank out a Panasonic equivalent, they have to compete with the three Panasonic models and up the game.

tgutgu said:

• Olympus has no IS in the lenses so the glass is not attractive to Panasonic customers

Click to expand...

Again, only a problem because they're competing with their partner.

tgutgu said:

• Uncomplete implementation of good features (attachable EVF without auto-switch between LCD and EVF)

Click to expand...

Compared to Panasonic?

tgutgu said:

• Very slow initial build-up of the lens system (in comparison)

Click to expand...

Yadda

tgutgu said:

• Very slow lens roadmap (in comparison)

Click to expand...

yadda

tgutgu said:

• No unique, differentiating lens line-up

Click to expand...

yadda

tgutgu said:

• Still no perspective on other body concepts than PEN style

Click to expand...

and yadda.

tgutgu said:

This has nothing to do with open standards. It is simply poor product and communication strategy.
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Thomas

Click to expand...

Most of the issues you outline wouldn't exist if Olympus didn't have an open platform competitor. Would Panasonic have come to market with a mirrorless camera without using the MFT spec? Even if they did, would they have beat Olympus to the market? I don't know, but I suspect not.

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BJ Nicholls
SLC, UT

Good points, but you're treating Panasonic and Olympus as joint beneficiaries. The trend to me looks like Panasonic reaps the real benefits and the benefit to Olympus is questionable in the future.

Let me underscore that I'm asking if the open platform is a stategic mistake by Olympus. It could have been the only mirrorless system on the market for quite some time. There wouldn't have been a G1, GH1, and GF1 to measure Olympus merits and demerits against, at least not before Olympus established the market itself.

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BJ Nicholls
SLC, UT

It's great for you. It's great for me. But is it great for Olympus in the long run?

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BJ Nicholls
SLC, UT

What are the membership fees for MFT?

I've been using "open standard" in quotes because it indeed isn't the same as a publicly documented standard. But I've not seen a revelation of the cost of entry to join in the MFT standard. I do recall reports that MFT was more tightly held than 4/3. Does Olympus get a license fee for Panasonic MFT products?

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BJ Nicholls
SLC, UT

4/3 was an open standard. U 4/3 was not.

BJN said:

tgutgu said:

Olympus never had a leadership in m4/3 because their market strategy and product line up is flawed and too narrow.

• The start was too late.

Click to expand...

Only because their open standard partner beat them by half a year.

BJN said:

• The start was too low profiled with a half baked, feature missing entry (EP-1)

Click to expand...

Only in comparison to expectations set by the G1

BJN said:

• The first body was a comparatively bad performer (AF)

Click to expand...

Ditto.

BJN said:

• The product line relies too much upon the PEN mythos and retro style

Click to expand...

That's marketing and it's been very effective. Any actual PEN heritage is extremely tenuous. Styling doesn't preempt performance.

BJN said:

• The product perspective is too inconclusive with the cheapest model having the best IQ

Click to expand...

That's inevitable in the digital camera cycle. Nikon's D7000 has the highest resolution, newest sensor because it has to get a forward-looking spec. The EPL1 makes the same sense.

BJN said:

• There is still no enthusiast model with build-in EVF and tiltable LCD, whereas Panasonic is about to release the fourth model of this class

Click to expand...

That's the open standard at work. Olympus can't just crank out a Panasonic equivalent, they have to compete with the three Panasonic models and up the game.

BJN said:

• Olympus has no IS in the lenses so the glass is not attractive to Panasonic customers

Click to expand...

Again, only a problem because they're competing with their partner.

BJN said:

• Uncomplete implementation of good features (attachable EVF without auto-switch between LCD and EVF)

Click to expand...

Compared to Panasonic?

BJN said:

• Very slow initial build-up of the lens system (in comparison)

Click to expand...

Yadda

BJN said:

• Very slow lens roadmap (in comparison)

Click to expand...

yadda

BJN said:

• No unique, differentiating lens line-up

Click to expand...

yadda

BJN said:

• Still no perspective on other body concepts than PEN style

Click to expand...

and yadda.

BJN said:

This has nothing to do with open standards. It is simply poor product and communication strategy.
--
Thomas

Click to expand...

Most of the issues you outline wouldn't exist if Olympus didn't have an open platform competitor. Would Panasonic have come to market with a mirrorless camera without using the MFT spec? Even if they did, would they have beat Olympus to the market? I don't know, but I suspect not.

Click to expand...

I presume that Panasonic would have come to the mirrorless market even without m4/3. The key factor of the first m4/3 (G1) was the excellent EVF and the small form factor in comparison to a APS-C DSLR, plus the rapid lens releases. They could have released such a system without having Olympus in the same boat, while the opposite is unlikely.

I would not even be sure that Olympus could be called the parent technology owner of m4/3. The sensors come from Panasonic, the EVF wasn't probably something in Olympus' portfolio, and live view came from Panasonic anyway.

While 4/3 is an optics centric system - more Olympus driven, m4/3 is mostly an electronics centric system, in which Panasonic has the lead. So the term "open standard by Olympus" is with reference to m4/3 not correct.

Actually m4/3 came to rescue for both manufacturer's photographic departments. While Panasonic's 4/3 line-up sank already a while ago, Olympus' 4/3 was not too successfull either in the past time.

Olympus could have been the product lead as in 4/3, if their market entry would have been earlier, with a better model than the EP-1, and with a more distinct lens program (primes, fast lenses). Up to now, they do not have responses to any of the Panasonic bodies except the GF-1, which is their real problem. On the other hand is the GF-1 very well able to compete with the Olympus offerings. Olympus' situation would be worse, if Panasonic had introduced their own camera system standard as Samsung and Sony did. Olympus sales probably benefit from the m4/3 lens availability, which is dominated by Panasonic if you look at the roadmaps.

So with the change from 4/3 to m4/3 we can see a leadership change from Olympus to Panasonic. It would have happened anyway, but Olympus could have been much better, if they had played their trump card: optical competence. (That the first O/EVF combo comes in a Fujifilm model is a joke.)

BJN said:

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BJ Nicholls
SLC, UT

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--
Thomas

Olympus is a fairly small player. Panasonic is the largest Japanese electronics maker.

Olympus could stop making cameras for 2 years to save money or work on R&D and then come right back. They know Panasonic will continue to develop bodies and lenses, so the format will continue.

Basically it takes a lot of pressure off of them. They are going to need time to transition from 4/3rds to micro 4/3rds.