Is Minolta making digital cameras again?

Look what I stumbled upon. A new Minolta pocket-sized point-and-shoot digital camera. Is Minolta making digital cameras again? Or did Konica Minolta sell/license the Minolta name to a 3rd party company to use?

Here's a link: https://www.fingerhut.com/product/NNJ9H.uts

Regards,
Warren
http://www.pbase.com/wtang

Looks like any agreement Minolta had with Sony when they sold the imaging side of the business has expired .

They might be testing the water to see if the Minolta brand can sell cameras again , though I'm not sure the point and shoot market will remember them .

A bit back it cropped up on here a patent on a micro 4/3 lens .

It's possible we might be seeing a mirror less camera from them soon .

The link provided just comes up ;

"Acces denied

You don't have permission to access "http://www.fingerhut.com/product/NNJ9H.uts" on this server.

Reference #18.faacd17.1495733729.b9553a2"

.

Do you have another link ?

neilt3 wrote:

The link provided just comes up ;

"Acces denied

You don't have permission to access "http://www.fingerhut.com/product/NNJ9H.uts" on this server.

Reference #18.faacd17.1495733729.b9553a2"

.

Do you have another link ?

That's odd.  I just tried that link in Chrome, Opera, and Internet Explorer and it worked in all 3 web browsers.  Maybe can try to go to http://www.fingerhut.com  and just search for "Minolta"?  That should work.

Regards,
Warren
http://www.pbase.com/wtang

wtang wrote:

neilt3 wrote:

The link provided just comes up ;

"Acces denied

You don't have permission to access "http://www.fingerhut.com/product/NNJ9H.uts" on this server.

Reference #18.faacd17.1495733729.b9553a2"

.

Do you have another link ?

That's odd. I just tried that link in Chrome, Opera, and Internet Explorer and it worked in all 3 web browsers. Maybe can try to go to http://www.fingerhut.com and just search for "Minolta"? That should work.

Regards,
Warren
http://www.pbase.com/wtang

Interesting indeed.....it's posted for sale on this link

http://www.cameta.com/Minolta-MN12Z-OIS-12x-Zoom-Wi-Fi-Digital-Camera-Black-98329.cfm?utm_campaign=cpc&gclid=CjsKDwjw6qnJBRDpoonDwLSeZhIkAIpTR8LCtHiy6nrW3sew-5gVfj3flPbZ9JOJ4mwiR_iu-ozEGgLzN_D_BwE

comes in Purple too

https://www.amazon.com/Minolta-MN12Z-Digital-Camera-Purple/dp/B071VVDVNF/ref=sr_1_5?s=photo&ie=UTF8&qid=1495983550&sr=1-5&refinements=p_4%3AMinolta

Cheers Mike , they work for me .

The fingerhut one just comes up access denied regardless of what browser is used .

Likewise there is no access on the smartphone im using now .

Might be set up so you can only get on it if your American based ?

.

Any how , it's interesting to see discussion on a new Minolta camera after 11 years !

Here's another one. A Minolta dash cam for your car.

http://www.cameta.com/Minolta-MNCD53-Car-Dashboard-1080p-HD-Video-Camera-with-LCD-Screen-and-G-Sensor-Black-98331.cfm

IMO, this is a bad sign.  Big camera brand names on cheap dash cams is usually a good sign the brand/trademark has been sold or licensed to the highest bidder.

Regards,
Warren
http://www.pbase.com/wtang

Cheers neil and warren,

unfortunately i am inclined to think the "highest bidder" scenario is in effect here.

It was a ray of hope though, but I think we can all assume that if Minolta were coming back in the way we all wish, we'd have heard a much bigger explosion of gossip.

sathor wrote:

I saw the one in the Fingerhut book, and tried to find more info, then came across the purple one on Amamzon. The one on amazon looks a lot like the sony wx80 that I used to have. I expect that it is just Sony using the Minolta nameplate to help keep the copyrights fresh, and expand market share indirectly.

Sony branding stuff as Minolta ?????

Copyright ?

If Sony did that Minolta would have them straight to court !

They are two diferant firms altogeather .

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Konica Minolta sold the imaging side of the buisness to Sony in 2006 which is why we can still use our A mount lenses from our film cameras  on modern digital cameras today .

KM just dumped their imaging side of of the buisness , not the whole lot .

KM continues to today making office equiptment , printers and the like .

See here ; https://www.konicaminolta.co.uk/home.html

The absence of any mention of a new range of cameras ( after 11 years out of that buisness) does indicate that they might have licenced out the "Minolta" brand name .

Wait and see .

It has to be said though that these new offerings are very lack luster and gain no interest from me , and i doubt the target market for them will have never heard of Minolta .

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Regarding Sony branding , they have invested heavily in their branding .

"Sony alpha" for all interchangable lens cameras , both "A" mount and "E" mount .

And "Sony Cybershot" for all fixed lens cameras from cheap point and shoot stuff to very expensive full frame cameras including fancy bridge cameras .

.

The only thing about Minolta that hasn't disapeared since they took it on is the A mount lens mount .

And their trying to kill that off with E mount !

Potentially KonicaMinolta is licensing the brand name. It doesn't have the Minolta globe logo. The typeface is Minolta's old typeface. After the merger Konica's typeface was used for the"KonicaMinolta" logotype

sathor wrote:

Yes, KM does have their printers, copiers etc. Sony got the camera division, and it would make sense they got the Minolta camera name as well. Many companies can share a name, and even change hands. For example, Hartzell Air movement and Hardwoods are the same company. They sold off Hartzell propeller years ago, and they operate in the same town, but are in no way related.

If the deal for the camera business included the minolta name in relation to cameras, they might have to make a few from time to time to keep that copyright with them, or it could be lost or revert. I am sure there are a bunch of highly paid corp lawyers dealing with this, so yeah, I do want to see how it ends. It should be interesting either way.

Use the furum search function on New's and announcments around 2005 .

What Sony bought is detailed there .

No branding and trademarks were in the deal , Minolta and KonicaMinolta remained the sole property of KonicaMinolta .

The only use Sony had of any wording including "Minolta" or "KonicaMinolta" was in sales litriture to show the heratige of A-mount .

.

Had Sony for some bizzare reason chose to market good's as "Minolta" ( not that they could ) It would be in the same way as they marker "alpha"  or "Cybershot" .

"Sony" would still be clearly seen to be the manufactuer .

.

If your interested in these cameras you might want to have a look at their website to save speculation .

Have a look at http://www.elitebrands.com/

And then look at http://www.elitebrands.com/brands/15  where four new Minolta cameras can be found .

kodacolor wrote:

Potentially KonicaMinolta is licensing the brand name. It doesn't have the Minolta globe logo. The typeface is Minolta's old typeface. After the merger Konica's typeface was used for the"KonicaMinolta" logotype

See here ;

http://www.elitebrands.com/

And 4 Minolta branded cameras here ;

http://www.elitebrands.com/brands/15

sathor wrote:

Ah, thanks. (Sorry for the delay, I bookmarked the forum thread and still couldn't find it for 2 months. I blame microsoft...)

No problem .

It's a slow forum here , so 2 months not that long !

FrancoD wrote:

Rebadging , including by leading brands, has been going on for a long time.

Most often it isn't noticed by the consumer and sometime not even the importers of that product are aware of it.

At one point, Sanyo, now called Xacti, was making more than half of the digital cameras sold.

Sony, Minolta, Pentax, Nikon, Olympus and many others had cameras made by Sanyo.

It would appear that this isn't a case of re-branding though .

Re-branding is when another firm manufactures items under licence for your well known brand , in this case Minolta , as has happened in the past .

This doesn't appear to be the case here .

There was a long thread that the MOD's deleted that started on the Sony A mount forum that then got transferred to the KM forum about this .

It would appear that Elite Brands went to court with "KonicaMinolta" to claim the "Minolta" brand as an abandoned trademark so they could use it on one of their own products ( not cameras ) , and the court agreed .

It would then seem that they must have thought "we'll slap it on our cameras now " as KM are unlikely to contest this again .

If that is what happened it would mislead the public into believing that they are buying a "Minolta" camera with a long heritage of the Minolta / KonicaMinolta camera firm .

Which in many people's views that would be a dishonest trading practice , even if not illegal .

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This issue was being looked into by Helen at Adorama , at least up until the thread being deleted .

What their solicitors and Helen discovered or concluded we don't know , but these "Minolta" branded cameras are still on sale at Adorama , which indicates no law is being broken by Elite Brands .

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Whether Elite Brands have any business connection with KonicaMinolta to produce a camera with the "Minolta" brand is unknown .

KM certainly does not acknowledge these cameras on their website , nor have anything to do with warranties .

Make your own mind up .

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I've chose my words carefully , so hopefully this post and thread won't also be deleted .