Iv never heard of Oberkochen China...?????....3
No,
They will still be in Wetzlar.
Some administration offices are moving to the Oberkochen headquarters.
And people say how great it is to have all these cheap Chinese clones.....this is what happens - big guns will no longer want to pursue a smaller and smaller slice of the pie, competing against ''brands'' with near-zero investment in R&D.
(...)
I have heard from highly credible sources that Zeiss has decided to move its sports optics operation out of Wetzlar. They will be moving the division to Oberkochen.
IMHO it's only common sence to do this when you have the luxuary to have the same production facility in Hungary, Wetzlar and Oberkochen and being confronted with over production capacity, to shut down one of the three. Running a business askes sometimes for hard choices.
Hi,
if this was just some company, I'd agree - but this is Carl Zeiss AG belonging to the not for profit Carl Zeiss Foundation...
https://www.zeiss.com/corporate/int/about-zeiss/the-carl-zeiss-foundation.html
See especially the Objectives and Responsibilities tab...
Joachim
Omid, if it is true it would be a big shock for the city of Wetzlar, once the place where Hensoldt, Leitz, Hartmann, Docter etc.etc. and many small and in their time well-known optical companies had their home, would then quicky losing its optical industry....
Gijs van Ginkel
Hi Gijs,
Sorry for the delayed response, I am traveling in the US East Coast. Yes, there will be major implications, specifically not all the skilled workers and high-level staff might be willing to relocate so some will depart Zeiss. It is also a sad news for the town of Wetzlar. Leica is still there but they are not the same size as Zeiss.
That's the sad faith of a prestigious company that is run by bean-counter managers. If Dr. Dobler would have listen to me back in 2010 and maybe adapted one of my inventions into a product, this could have been prevented Zeiss Sports Optics is losing money because it is no longer leading, they are just following [stupid] trends that have been initiated by other optics companies such as Swarovski. They recently introduced the most outrageous hunting rifle scope with a 36mm main tube and 8X zoom ratio. This is the biggest and ugliest blunder ever.. I repeatedly gave presentations on my ideas but they showed no interest.. When one of their product managers quit in 2011, he immoderately contacted me and expressed interest in my concepts. He has licensed two of my invention since for development through his own OEM channels. Zeiss Sports Optics is not innovating. It is not surprising that its "new" products are not selling as well.
-Omid
I love the 8x zoom ratio for the Victory V8's but agree the 36mm tube is stupid, why add extra weight /bulk that is not need. Also they don't make any 42mm in the Victory line which has put me off buying any V8's. Anyway the big thing now is long range, so hopefully they make nice FFP scope.Hi Gijs,
Sorry for the delayed response, I am traveling in the US East Coast. Yes, there will be major implications, specifically not all the skilled workers and high-level staff might be willing to relocate so some will depart Zeiss. It is also a sad news for the town of Wetzlar. Leica is still there but they are not the same size as Zeiss.
That's the sad faith of a prestigious company that is run by bean-counter managers. If Dr. Dobler would have listen to me back in 2010 and maybe adapted one of my inventions into a product, this could have been prevented Zeiss Sports Optics is losing money because it is no longer leading, they are just following [stupid] trends that have been initiated by other optics companies such as Swarovski. They recently introduced the most outrageous hunting rifle scope with a 36mm main tube and 8X zoom ratio. This is the biggest and ugliest blunder ever.. I repeatedly gave presentations on my ideas but they showed no interest.. When one of their product managers quit in 2011, he immoderately contacted me and expressed interest in my concepts. He has licensed two of my invention since for development through his own OEM channels. Zeiss Sports Optics is not innovating. It is not surprising that its "new" products are not selling as well.
-Omid
I love the 8x zoom ratio for the Victory V8's but agree the 36mm tube is stupid, why add extra weight /bulk that is not need. Also they don't make any 42mm in the Victory line which has put me off buying any V8's. Anyway the big thing now is long range, so hopefully they make nice FFP scope.
Agree Zeiss is not innovating as much as it could be, but it is a big company and I guess the focus is departments that makes heaps of money for the foundation... Sad, but it is the way of the world.
SBB,
I was under the impression Omid was talking about the Swarovski rifle scope but the reason to go for a 36mm tube is to make the possibiity to create more clicks for long range distances, something which seems impossible with a 30mm tube. The extra weight is 130 gram.
Like Dr. Dobler earlier mentioned; solutions comes with compromises.
Others might call it stupid
Jan
Oh yeah, you are be right. Dr Gerold Dobler left Swarovski for Zeiss ... so he was talking to Dr Dobler getting Zeiss to innovate but instead Zeiss follows Swarovski. My mistake, I was reading too fast. The new ds Swarovski scope with inbuilt range looks like Swarovski is innovating though. Too bad for Zeiss. wonder how long they will come up with something similiar.
Actually Dr. Dobler went from Swarovski to Leica (which costed Leica a significant amount of money) and was there reponseble for the development of the Magnus riflescope.
All of these brands are as much a hunting brand as a birding brand. But they conveniently allow us to ignore this by pressing the "nature" button when entering their websites.One could ask him/herself wether a "birding" brand like Swarovski should innovate in such equipment, but that's a quite different story.
And afterwards, Swarovski sued Leica on patent infringement with the Magnus scope. Not sure how it ended, but I guess Leica won, as they still sell these scopes.
All of these brands are as much a hunting brand as a birding brand. But they conveniently allow us to ignore this by pressing the "nature" button when entering their websites.