Olympus announces portable DAP production halt

Grab your tissues, folks, 'cause it's a sad day for the legions of Olympus MP3 player fans worldwide. (Pause. Wait for laughter. Continue.) So we may have exaggerated that whole "legions of fans" thing a bit, but we're pretty sure that a few people will be upset to learn that Olympus has announced it will halt production of portable DAPs, along with shifting production focus away from compact digital cameras and towards digital SLRs. The only good news here is that our m:robe, which gets mocked everywhere we go, will soon become a collector's item that we can unload for profit on eBay.

[Thanks, Corey]

[TIMMAH! @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

Hmmmm... not sure the concentration on digital SLR is a good thing. It's a little late. They've pretty much already lost the game at this point to Nikon and Canon. But the lower end of the market is definitely being carved up by way too many players (and the no-name brands are steadily getting better and may actually take some passable pictures pretty soon.) I do like Oly's compact cameras though. My first really good digital camera was an Oly C2020 which I loved. Great user interface and very easy to use even in full manual mode. Upgraded to a C700UZ which also had a great interface.

[Arthur @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

I liked the design of the m:robe. In terms of design, it was what i wanted in an DAP.

I would have loved to trade up from my Archos, but all the reviews for the m:robe said that the mp3 management software was the biggest issue.

Maybe next time around.

[snowbag @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

I hate my slow, heavy, battery-eating D-510 Zoom. But it was a gift.

Second!

[ChrisXS @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

There won't be a next time around. They probably would have sold tons more units if the thing did video.

[Jeff @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

TIMMAH!:

You could have said all the same things about the film SLR market. But the fact of the matter is there is room for more than two manufacturers. Canon and Nikon have historically always been the biggest SLR makers, with Olympus, Pentax, Minolta (and now Konica-Minolta) more or less equally sharing the rest of the market. It shouldn't be a major surprise that the same situation now exists for DSLR's, given that SLR users buy a *system*, not a camera. All those people who owned Olympus film SLR's in the past now likely own Olympus DSLR's because they can use the same lenses and accessories.

So Olympus, like every SLR maker that's been around for a while, has a built-in customer base to take advantage of. The challenge is in attracting new users, but I don't doubt that their current offerings are at least good enough to maintain market share.

Of course they're not going to unseat Canon and Nikon. But you know, despite what Microsoft, Ma Bell and Standard Oil would tell you, not *every* company is out to corner the market and control the world. Some companies are perfectly content with simply being profitable (and hopefully growing more profitable, but not *necessarily* at the expense of others). Not everybody's about creating a monopoly.

[cy7 @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

i really like the m:rope, i think it looks really cool and neat. I think in term of design, they can totally compare to apple inc. but not the GUI, tho, lol! im very sad to hear this story, because they are a cool maker with very unique design.... bye olym~

[Corey @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

Though this discussion is getting more and more off topic, here is what I think of the whole Olympus situation...

First of all, they tried to reinvent the wheel with the E-300 & E-1's. Those cameras are both uncomfortable and don't offer a lot of features that modern-DSLR owners expect (DOF preview, dust ref., autofocus that works, sync cord hookup, iso above 400, and a nice body instead of cheap plastic).

Olympus will experience the same thing with their line of DSLR's that they are experiencing with their DAP's because they are unable to listen to their customers.

While I liked the m:robe for its touch-screen, that wasn't nearly enough for me to dish out $500 on a product I had only ever seen on TV for superbowl.

Pooh.

[Tim Rapson @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

I like the Olympus cameras and might have one right now except for one thing; X-D picture card. Dumb. Greedy.
My daughter has a little 5 gig M:Robe that is very nice and was much easier to use than my wife's Dell DJ (the very first model) and we got it on Radio Shack sale for a ridiculous $99, about half what the iPod Mini of the same capabilities sold for. I don't think anyone has succeeded at carving out any kind of profitable market percentage against the iPods. Can't blame Olympus for trying.

[Bill @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

I'm a proud owner of an m:robe 500i. I love the thing, especially since I got it at Circuit City for $200 and grabbed it as quickly as possible. Of course, I knew it was about to die, seeing as it was supposed to sell at $500 (which would have been a total rip-off).

If you can still find them at Circuit City, grab one, they're pretty good (the only problem, as everyone said, being the crappy music-management software, but what I do is use iTunes to organize and tag my music and then only use m:trip to sync) for $200-$250. Just don't pay a dime more for one.

[George @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

Corey - You seem to be mis-informed:

Those cameras are both uncomfortable - Many who have tried the E-1 find that its almost like an extension of their hand. Many have bought on pure ergonomics alone
DOF preview - E-1 and E-500 both have it
dust ref. - ? Oly is the only manufacturer that has an answer for dust
autofocus that works - Haha.... Canons are well known for back focus and other problems. No such problems with Oly
sync cord hookup - Look on the E-1 body its covered by a screw cap
iso above 400 - ahem... goes up to 3200
and a nice body instead of cheap plastic - E-1 is magnesium alloy and the E-300 is metal and plastic. The E-300 feels much more solid than C/N counterparts. Go to a store and touch one. You'll be surprised

[Nick Collingridge @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

I wonder to what degree the fact that Olympus use the abomination that is the proprietary xD card has affected their sales of compact cameras? I have a couple of friends who are cursing the day they bought an Olympus camera because the memory cards are not well supported by other devices. Personally I think any manufacturer that develops its own new standard when there are other out there that already do just as good a job (SD, essentially) should fail in the marketplace, if the free market is to do its job properly. Developing their own standard for memory cards with Fuji can only have been about wanting to make more money (greediness), because I can't see ANY way that it benefits the consumer - who appears to have spoken on the matter.

Another point is that in my view they will struggle to make serious headway in the DSLR market because they don't have legions of people out there who already own lenses like Canon and Nikon in paricular do. If Olympus hadn't exited the film SLR market all those years (20?) ago it might be a different matter, but they did and lost their beachead in the SLR marketplace then.

[Adrian @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

I'm a happy owner of a m:robe 100. It has all functionality that a music player needs and I just like its looks.
One big downside is the m:trip software you have to use to copy music to the m:robe. But the players database is stored in XML format and thus easily created yourself.
You can find a PHP-GTK script to create the database here: http://robe.infinitesimal.org/

[Erik @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

I bought the m:robe 500 last year... i love the DAP portion of the unit, but the camera is very crappy... i mean super crappy.

but what i've come to do, is put my high-res images on the camera, and use it to cycle through them...

[Roman @ Dec 19th 2005 2:38AM]

Got a 500i, its a truly amazing thing. They could dump that horrible software, and less it for more. There should be an alturnative to the software.
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