Remember that Pentax USA is just a Sales office. The Westerners will likely be kept out of the loop...there will likely be a few junior Japanese employees assigned to pick the brains of the US employees and send reports back to Japan. There will be a senior Japanese manager in the office "minding the store" while a Western manager takes the front of the stage. Everyone knows who is really in charge.
Japanese companies like Pentax are run by technical people. Engineers in Japan (just like Western ones) view sales and marketing people as inferior and not trustworthy. Thus the role of the sales offices is to wait and see what new product arrives in the next shipment.. and then to decide how to explain it and sell it.
You will not learn anything new from a Western employee that is not already to be found in a formal press release, this is particularly the case if there is the word "sales" or "marketing" in their job title.
These US employees end up in this situation because the Japanese with the inside knowledge will not break ranks and make a personal opinion known, and so are not comfortable in speaking publicly. Culturally it is acceptable in Japan to defer a question.
In the Western company, employees feel compelled by their egos to gab about the new stuff before information is ready for release.
Notice that Apple (the world's largest technology company (by market cap)) does not give any advance notice of new products... because that privilege is reserved personally by Steve Jobs. Same result..different reason. Apple or Pentax we will all find out at the same time.
Japanese companies like Pentax are run by technical people. Engineers in Japan (just like Western ones) view sales and marketing people as inferior and not trustworthy. Thus the role of the sales offices is to wait and see what new product arrives in the next shipment.. and then to decide how to explain it and sell it.
You will not learn anything new from a Western employee that is not already to be found in a formal press release, this is particularly the case if there is the word "sales" or "marketing" in their job title.
These US employees end up in this situation because the Japanese with the inside knowledge will not break ranks and make a personal opinion known, and so are not comfortable in speaking publicly. Culturally it is acceptable in Japan to defer a question.
In the Western company, employees feel compelled by their egos to gab about the new stuff before information is ready for release.
Notice that Apple (the world's largest technology company (by market cap)) does not give any advance notice of new products... because that privilege is reserved personally by Steve Jobs. Same result..different reason. Apple or Pentax we will all find out at the same time.