Additionally, we will also promote change in the distribution of internal resources,
from development to production as well as sales & marketing.
Sales double speak, less R&D money?
Pretty much. Photographers, while generally good people, are honestly really bad as a group when it comes to following the business news.
Sony's Alpha line, which so many people rightfully cheer, wasn't paid for by what was at the time Sony's camera division. They couldn't come close to affording it in reality. Sony paid for that development with profits from semiconductors. Sony is now a holding company and the camera division is now a seperate company, which by the way, is predicting to make, literally, no profit this year. That massive R&D investment from outside sources was a one time deal. Many analyst are predicting it will be sold, just as Sony has done in the past with Vaio. The last investor's day very strongly implied this is exactly what the new Sony holding company plans. Sony, literally, didn't have cameras anywhere in the company's future plans as they all but openly stated that gadgets were all going to be abandoned with the possible (probable?) exception of gaming systems. (Hence the editor in chief of Gizmodo's impassioned, and pleading, article not to follow through).
Nikon almost went out of business this past year. That's not hyperbole. The company completely reorganized as its last attempt to stave off filing for bankruptcy. If the D850 did not sell well (not flopped mind you, just had weak sales) Nikon would have filed for bankruptcy.
Canon has been preforming very well as a company, and smartly diversifying. They have not made the gamble on unaffordable R&D progress.
Make no mistake about it: the reason why Sony and Nikon (particularly Sony) advanced at the pace they have the last few years (the 5D ii is a good timeframe starting point) is because they've been following an unaffordable model. This is not a surprise, this is not a theory, but instead a well detailed fact among analyst and traders for years. Keep in mind Nikon was trading for barely over $10 a share heading into 2016. They either took a gamble (and they took several) or they were looking at going away.
That is just the math, and it doesn't matter what reviewers do or don't like about a camera say about the company.
Canon isn't behind the times, they're not releasing old technology, they're not 'out of touch' as photography blogs and reviewers might sometimes state. Switch over to financial and business news and you get the actual facts regarding these companies, not made up 'facts' about the companies based on a if a reviewer likes the button lay-out of a camera, the codec video is recorded in, or if a touch bar is 'stupid' or not.
In fact, Canon's approach, quite steadfast and well paced, is out-lined in great detail every year, as required in both the US and Japanese (among other countries) law. Anyone can read it if they so choose. Photographers are just bad at informing themselves when it comes to business news unfortunately, preferring to just make things up because they're fans or not of a particular product model.
Yeah, Canon's cutting back on R&D, just as they noted in their financial disclosures. They got their FF mirrorless production cycle on track now. Nikon is struggling, but will survive and the smart money is on Sony's new camera company being sold (just as Sony holding said they would do if the company doesn't turn a profit).
Kai is funny, Fro is sarcastic, and so forth, but they (reviewers in general) demonstrate all the time they don't know what they're talking about when it comes to the companies themselves. None of this is a secret, it fact it's all very well publicized information, photographers just have to be bothered.