I cannot agree with the above statements.
My career was with an international corporation one division of which is in Tokyo. It was owned 10% by Hitachi now Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. They do not subcontract the entire design development to a company outside of Nikon. Components are manufactured to Nikon design and standards. Nikon has strict quality control standards or the components are rejected. I doubt that the ED optical elements are not from Nikon along with the special multi coating, these are very guarded processes and not shared outside to subcontractors. It is well known many of the Nikon cameras and lens are manuf. outside of Japan,,, these are in Nikon owned and operated facilities for final assembly and inspection for quality control. Many of the components are subcontracted to other companies.
If one subcontractor decides not to manufacture a Nikon assembly,, many other sources would be located for the work. Nikon dropped some of their Fieldscope products to introduce new updated models.
The concept that Nikon would co-design and develop a product to compete in their own market is just not possible in a large corporation. A senior manager of a Nikon division would not consider a partnership with a competing company, he would be fired for even proposing it to corporate.
Kamakura has been a subcontractor of optical elements for many Japanese companies for many years. Just because they make components for both Kite and Nikon does not imply a partnership. When I subcontracted to outside vendors,, my designs an parts were not available or visible to any other companies also using the same vendor.
Regards,
FK