Industry News: Sony to enter the drone market with Airpeak

Joules

doom
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Jul 16, 2017
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With your line of thinking, Apple would still be just doing computers. Instead, they diversified by leveraging their existing competencies to enter new markets.
But they are just making computers (including a pretty large set of software to run on them). Granted, they come in different sizes (smartphone, tablet, laptop), but especially with the very recent switch to ARM based SoCs, at least the mobile products are very similar under the hood. As you say, leveraging existing competencies. Which is what I was arguing: What indicates that Canon or Nikon have such competencies?

Canon especially has greatly diversified into medical, security and machine vision applications for industrial use. So, more B2B oriented and much closer to their existing competencies.

I am not even saying that they couldn't or won't enter the market for drones or do some first party accessories for the cinema line. I was just responding to the notion that it is such a no brainer to do so.

Also as far as anything goes, Apple is not an example that generalizes well. Their tight ecosystem means when they make an accessory like the ear pods or the Mac Pro screen, these products compete under very different market conditions than a Canon gimbal, recorder or drone would.
 
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20Dave

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Jan 19, 2013
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With your line of thinking, Apple would still be just doing computers. Instead, they diversified by leveraging their existing competencies to enter new markets.
Apple diversified into markets that they researched and determined that there was a good ROI, or at least they anticipated that they could grow the market to a substantial size. I don't see the drone market as ever getting very big.

Everyone that I know owns a smartphone. A lot of people that I know own non-cellphone cameras of one sort or another. I know exactly one person who owns a drone. I don't personally know any professional photographers, and I would imagine that a large segment of pros would want (or already own) a drone for things like wedding and athletic shoots (assuming local ordinances permit their use). But that is a pretty small market in terms of consumer spending.
 
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Atlasman

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May 14, 2020
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Apple diversified into markets that they researched and determined that there was a good ROI, or at least they anticipated that they could grow the market to a substantial size. I don't see the drone market as ever getting very big.

Everyone that I know owns a smartphone. A lot of people that I know own non-cellphone cameras of one sort or another. I know exactly one person who owns a drone. I don't personally know any professional photographers, and I would imagine that a large segment of pros would want (or already own) a drone for things like wedding and athletic shoots (assuming local ordinances permit their use). But that is a pretty small market in terms of consumer spending.
The point I was trying to make was in general terms: not limited to drones, but to other accessories that fall in the realm of imaging—like external recorders and gimbals.

As for Sony entering the drone business, filmmaking is a growing market—many photographers are easing into video because their customers are requesting this service.
 
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