XL1S discontinued?! Guess why... ;)

[Rob Lohman]

Personally I would move the red circle to half July... just to make
you not pull all your hair....

[Jarred Land]

That whole "better not piss off our competetor" moto went out in the 90's. Companies dont hate each other like we all think, in fact they work together more than ever now.

Things have changed, and I gurantee you, as panasonic can prove with the 100,000 unit sales of the DVX in less than a year, The "prosumer" market is very prosperous, and a market that Canon desperately wants to get back into now that sales of the XL1 has hit the bottom.

[Jeff Donald]

That whole "better not piss off our competitor" motto went out in the 90's. Companies dont hate each other like we all think, in fact they work together more than ever now.

Then explain why they don't have a higher model than the prosumer XL1s?

[Jarred Land]

thats something you hafta ask Canon.. all I can do is guess.

My guess would be that with the strong ENG dominance by JVC and Sony, they did a risk assesment and found that to spend the millions of R&D it costs to make a new product, to sell 1000 or so high end cameras a year if they where lucky wasnt worth it... which is why they make lenses because its a better payoff.

I think Canon is a very cautious company that doesnt like to spend money in this segment or the prosumer segment, Look at the near decade old Xl1 as an example. Even thier booths at Trade shows are pretty weak, I actually couldnt believe thier mickey mouse booth at NAB.

Dont get me wrong, Im not saying canon is a bad company at all... that is just my guess. They did have the best prosumer camera from 1996-2003.

[Michael Ray]

"Then explain why they don't have a higher model than the prosumer XL1s?"

Companies like Sony, Panasonic, JVC dont just release cameras, they release entire SYSTEMS including Decks, Cameras, Editors etc. Canon would have to break in to a market that has at least three really really really established companies to compete with. the only company that sells only a camera with any sucess is Ikegami. So for Canon to realisticly do a "pro" camera they would have to have not just one but at least two ENG cameras one with half inch chips and one with two thirds chips into a market that already have near a dozen different cameras with matching decks and other accessories and only wind up in 5th int the market place which really doesn't make sense. Just ask JVC how much fun it is being third and always playing catch up. The millions or R&D plus the equal number of millions of marketing would never pay for such a high end camera no matter how "killer" it is. Plus the XL and GL along with the DVX100 and PD170 have really gone a long way to chip away at the feet of the big ENG cameras. Why spend so many resources breaking into a market whos days are numbered......

[Nick Hiltgen]

I agree that I would rather pay 10000 bucks for a canon version of the varicam then pay 3000 for a dvx-100(a) with interchangable lenses. I agree that canon still holds the market for broadcast lenses but I think that there are slowly losing market share to fujinon. Will they get out of the lens business anytime soon? I wouldn't bet on it. But it might be kind of a neat thing to have both your camera and lens made by the same company for a broadcast camera.

Another thing to consider is the cost of canon glass. I know that panasonic made a lot off of the sales of dvx 100's last year (100,000? cameras) but if you consider each HD lens that canon sells is at least 5-6 times the cost of a dvx100 and each SD lens they sell is 2-3 times the cost, then you get an idea of how few lenses they wwuold have to sell in order to get the market share "lost" by the xl-1.

Michael also raises a good point but if Canon can develop a camera that will be slighly above the prosumer mark amd steal some business away from the varicam and others, then the Millions in R&D eould be a good investment after all.

[Ken Tanaka]

"better not p*ss off our competetor" moto went out in the 90's.

Jarred,
You misunderstood my remarks. The issue is not one of angering "competetors"[sp]; the issue is avoiding competition with prime customers.

Companies like Canon are organized into market segment divisions. Within the video product lines, for example, everything seen on this page is sold by a consumer division. Everything represented on this page is developed and marketed by a broadcast and professional division. Development of a camera with some of the sophistication that many here would wish for would certainly create quite a bloody internal war. If you've ever worked for a large, multinational company you'll know what this means...and it's not pretty.

In the end, the market for such a camera would be pretty puny and such a battle would be unprofitable and counterproductive. Canon would probably do much better (financially) to simply enhance their photocopier lines, which probably contribute as much or more to Canon's bottom-line than video gear.

[Chris Hurd]

<< now that sales of the XL1 has hit the bottom. >>

You may want to believe that, but it's not true. XL1S sales have not bottomed out; just try to buy one. Just about every dealer in the U.S. has sold through their allotment. They can't keep it in stock. Canon will definitely sell (already has sold nearly) every single one they make, that's why authorized dealer pricing has never fallen. After that rebate expires, you won't be able to buy one, because they'll be sold out completely. Plus, the manufacturer's rebate offer caused XL1S sales to jump way up from December '03 to the present.

<< which is why they make lenses because its a better payoff. >>

They make lenses because that's what they have always done. Canon is the world's largest manufacturer of optical glass. Lenses have been their specialty since before there ever was a consumer video market. Ken's statement is the correct one, it's much more profitable for Canon to make broadcast video lenses for the Pansonic, Sony, JVC etc. professional video cameras, and Canon video camcorders will *always* be consumer pieces (although some are used in a professional capacity).

<< I think Canon is a very cautious company that doesnt like to spend money in this segment or the prosumer segment >>

Canon is a conservative company, but they love to spend money. More than 8% of their net sales is spent on research and development. They love to make money, too: last year Canon's gross profit margin was 56%, compared to Panasonic parent corp. Matsushita's gross profit margin of 32%.

<< Look at the near decade old Xl1 as an example. >>

The XL1 is not a decade old. It's forty months old (Jan '98 to Jul '02). The XL1S is about 24 months old (Jul '02 to Jul '04). I suppose I can understand why some people still can't grasp that concept, but the two models are completely different camcorders, only the body molding is the same. There is all the difference in the world between an XL1 and an XL1S, so much more so than, say, the bug-fix between the DVX100 and DVX100A.

<< Even thier booths at Trade shows are pretty weak, I actually couldnt believe thier mickey mouse booth at NAB. >>

Heh, I would hardly call an 80' x 100' booth at NAB "mickey mouse." Although it was smaller than the Pansonic and Sony booths, it was in fact larger than JVC's 70' x 80' booth. Canon is the only manufacturer to present a "touch and try" counter at trade shows. All other video camera manufacturers will show only one camera of any model, locked off on a tripod, and you have to cluster around it and wait for that one overwhelmed rep to give you a minute of their time before someone else interrupts. However the Canon counter will always have at least six or eight cameras of each type, with just as many reps at the counter, and the cameras are not locked off, but may be picked up and handled at will. It's definitely the best way to show product. You can actually get your hands on it and talk to someone about it, and there are plenty of cameras and people to talk to. This makes a lot more sense than the way JVC, Sony and Panasonic present at trade shows.

Here's what really is "mickey mouse" at trade shows: the newest products from all the other camera manufacturers are made out of trees. Wooden camcorders. Balsa cams, not Dalsa cams. Termite food under glass which you can't touch and nobody knows pricing or availability -- just that it'll be very cool if the mock-up ever becomes real someday. The Canon booth always has working models, not wooden blocks, and they can be bought today (or within a couple of weeks), not in a year from now or whenever. They won't show what you can't buy.

<< Dont get me wrong, Im not saying canon is a bad company at all... that is just my guess. >>

Oh, you could go ahead and say it's a bad company, that's okay. But it sure wouldn't explain why it's the fifth most profitable company in Japan (way, way ahead of Sony and Matsushita), or the third largest patent holder in the world.

Yeah, that tired old XL1S, that one single product sure is dragging an entire multi-billion dollar corporation down to its knees. The XL1S has brought them to the brink of financial ruin! Canon could collapse at any moment! How can they just stand by and let that happen?

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

Third largest patent holder: interesting to know. What's the bulk of this--optics, electronics, code? Or other?

[Don Berube]

Chris,

Well said! My thoughts exactly!

Looking forward to seeing you this week in Lake Success ;-)

- don

[Chris Hurd]

Robert: all of the above, but primarily imaging technologies. Correction to my previous post, Canon is not the third largest, but second largest patent holder in the world.

Don: can't wait to see the whole crew again, should be an interesting week! I'll buy the first round Wednesday night.

[Jeff Donald]

The list, as published recently for the years 1993 through 2003 (11 years)

1. IBM
2. Canon
3. NEC
4. Hitachi
5. Sony
6. Matsushita
7. Toshiba
8. Mitsubishi
9. Samsung
10. Motorola

IBM's total was well in excess of 25,000 patents, over 3,4000 just last year. I guess the Japanese have the right idea, with their universities turning out 10 engineers to every 1 lawyer. Well at least we can sue them for infringing on our patents. I wonder if any nation ever sued itself to greatness?

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

Chris's new list is only a 2003 listing; Jeff's list goes back 11 years. The first list linked to goes back to 1969, i.e., it extends over the entire duration of every issued patent's lifetime, making Canon #3.

Issued patents aren't necessarily currently valid patents (some may have been since overturned), or even patents enforced (often enough, they're the result of a pre-emptive filing just to make sure nobody else causes you trouble).

[Luis Caffesse]

Wow, I go out of town for a few days and this thread suddenly gets new life!

Chris:

"The XL1 is not a decade old. It's forty months old (Jan '98 to Jul '02). The XL1S is about 24 months old (Jul '02 to Jul '04)"

I'm not trying to nitpick too much here, but didn't the XL1s come out in July of 2001? That makes it 3 years old now, not 2. And 3 seems to be the magic number for canon in terms of upgrade and/or replacement. As you always say, we can learn a lot from history.

And by the way.... why would you say the 'ending' date of the XL1s is Jul '04? We are only now in June.

Did the kennelmaster let something slip there by mistake?
:)

I'll just assume you did it for the sake of ease... round up on your estimates, right?

-Luis

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

Yes, it's much closer to 3 years than 2.

They may not have started to become widely available until sometime around January 2002, but that still makes them older than 24 months.

Time for a new camera.