March 31st, and will no longer make photoprocessing supplies. The company will instead focus on its business machines and supplies business. The announcement comes after the company’s camera unit posted a $6.23 million operating loss from July to September 2005.
It has been reported that Konica Minolta is making a deal with Sony to give Sony a minority stake in a plant in Malaysia that produced cameras for Konica Minolta, as well as other photographic assets. Last July, Konica Minolta and Sony announced plans to jointly develop digital SLRs.
Long line of innovations
Before it merged with Konica in 2003, Minolta had produced a long line of high-quality SLRs and point-and-shoot cameras, and offered several firsts and innovations. The Maxxum 7D, for example, was the first digital camera with internal anti-shake technology, whille the original Maxxum 7000 was the first autofocus SLR. The Maxxum X was the first to use an internal “periscope” zoom lens design, now widely copied, that allowed them to make the smallest camera at the time. After the merger, all cameras carried the Konica Minolta name.
The Minolta SRT-101 was the company’s biggest seller, and was only outsold by the Canon FTb. Minolta produced a long line of rangefinder cameras as well, starting with the Minolta 35 1 of 1947. Minolta even produced a twin-lens reflex, the Miniflex, in 1959. The company was never fully embraced by professional photographers, although it offered a handful pro-oriented models, including the Maxxum 9, which is still in production, and the Maxxum 9000 of 1985, which was heavily gasketed against sand and water and was available in all-white for extreme heat use.
Never recovered from litigation
However, it was autofocus tecnology–or, rather, who owned the intellectual rights to it–that was Minolta’s downfall. In the late 1980s, Honeywell sued Minolta, claiming Minolta stole patented autofocus technology from them. Minolta had to pay a settlement of $128 million–a financial hit from which the company never really recovered.
Konica also made SLRs, notably its AutoReflex line, which was produced from 1968 through 1978. The last Konica SLR, the FT-1, was made in 1983. The company also made a popular line of rangefinder cameras, starting with the Konica 1 of 1948. They made digital cameras until the merger with Minolta in 2003. The company provided a full line of color print and slide film for both professional and amateur use, although in recent years a key part of its business has been chemistry and printing paper for minilabs.
Konica was established in 1873, and Minolta in 1928. Go here for current availability of Konica Minolta products.
