Disappearing threads...

[Winston]

What's the matter with this forum?

I just tried to reply to a thread titled "The A700 was a Flop". The reply button sent me to no man's land and when I go t back the thread was gone!

Am I having another senior moment?

[Javelin]

over the weekend DK applied a patch to the forums that didn't take. many were locked out so he restored from backups and we lost a coupleof days of posts. you probably tried to reply to one that was in your cache

[Winston]

I don't think so. That was a new thread. it wasn't there an hour ago. but it was there half an hour ago. I think David pulled it.

[Javelin]

hrm, well theres no google cache for it. theres an MSN bot here but they don't cache

[Winston]

David's thread...DSLR sales chart.

[David Kilpatrick]

I showed this to Gary Friedman and he thought it should be pulled because of the danger of it getting into the wrong hands. We both agree it could be a badly designed chart which showed Alpha sales apparently falling and no impact from the A700 launch.

I have now emailed Paul Genge's chart back to Paul Genge asking for an explanation as to why the A700 launch appears to have had no effect on sales, which dropped to an all-time low... apparently.

So, the post was pulled to avoid the possibly misleading percentage graphic getting into the public domain.

For the record, it showed a massive increase in share after the A200-300-350 launches but no apparent activity at all for the A700 launch.

David

[Javelin]

groan.. what market was that chart for? i'm wondering if they pulled the A700 out because of the possibility of the A700 bestbuy fiasco distorting the numbers?

[Dr. Harout]

I might have an explanation for that.
A700 was released in September 2007 if I remember well. And as I was determined to buy one asked friends who come and go to the United Arab Emirates to bring one.
Waited till New Year with no product hitting the shelves. As I was traveling for the New Year holidays I got in contact with Sony representative in Beirut, Lebanon. They assured it will be on the market before I reach Lebanon. Then, after a few more letters I was informed it will be available in the second week of 2008.
... It wasn't there for the 4th week. I got tired and decided to find someone who would be willing to bring one from the US.
Finally, I received my copy from there at the end of the first week of March 2008.
At the end of the month (or was it at the beginning of April) the A700 showed up in Dubai (but yet no advertisements on their Agency's home page (representative) up till now (look for yourself, it's a site; http://www.jumbocorp.com and you'll understand).
You might ask 'how about Armenia'... A100 was discontinued but yet it was exhibited in our country. What's more is that A200 is available here, and one of the staff at the representation told me they just received the A700...
If that's the way Sony representatives or agencies will work, then all their expenditure on a product launch are in vain.

[bossel]

... as to why the A700 launch appears to have had no effect on sales, which dropped to an all-time low... apparently.

A700 launch? wasn't that last year? And the A200etc was launched after that. And the A900 was launched too recently to have any effect already. I wonder the chart - there must be a tiny bump in july when I got my A700

[David Kilpatrick]

My post was up for about 15 seconds, and I have subsequently got a clear explanation from Paul Genge at Sony, which will allow the chart to be used.

The original purpose was to ask our own members whether they thought the chart should be published because of the danger of Canon, Nikon forums - dPreview etc - grabbing the image and misusing it. Gary Friedman was so surprised by the chart that I reacted fast and pulled my own post.

Here is the chart, and it relates to volume of camera units NOT value. Hence the apparent doldrums when the A700 was launched - there were no A100s being delivered, only A700s, and the volumes were low but the value apparently were well up. Paul says the A900 will have no impact on this graph, but will have an impact on a values graph - which Sony is not releasing right now.

uksaleschart.jpg (122.55 KiB) Viewed 6768 times

Here is what Paul has to say about the chart, since he created it. Sony is the bottom bit in dark blue (scroll down).

"Remember – you are looking at Volume – not value! Easy mistake to make.
Therefore the sales impact in volume of a700 is marginal, as we are not at the lofty levels of Canon and Nikon at that point in the market. Therefore the greater impact in these numbers comes from sales of a200-a300-a350. In the same way as a900 will not affect these numbers significantly. The value chart will change though.
For every 4x a200 we sell, against 1x a700 the numbers mount up. But then one value sale of a900 equates to 8x a200 for the value chart.
The a100 was on its last legs before Christmas last year, and therefore by the time Christmas peak happened the only retailer pushing a100 significantly was Argos clearing the last of Europe’s silver a100 cameras.
As I am sure you can image a700 is not a gifting proposition at Christmas, so our volume share dropped. But it has made for a very healthy, steady and reassuringly rapid growth ever since January and the introduction of the a200 and later models.
So no concern in the numbers below being shown. You just need to understand how to read them."

He's happy for me to use the chart in the report I am working on, of the launch conference workshop, so it will appear in due course in a page (rather than just hiding away here in the forum).

David

[Winston]

This is becoming a fanboy site...

IMHO, it's a real bad move to delete user posts, whether they were correct or incorrect, because posts like that are exactly what a forum like this is for! Discussion!

-Sonolta

The only thing deleted here was David's own post which he pulled. As I remeber the content, he expressed some concern as to the wisdom of posting it. He apparently rethought, and pulled it as I was posting a reply. There was no way he new I was doing that. No "user" post was deleted other than his own. As I remember, the "view count" was zero when I saw it.

By the way, I was going to recommend that he pull it until more info was available.

Why are you in such a snit over this?

[David Kilpatrick]

Don, it's a joke - that kind of a joke... so are all the other censored words you may, or may not discover, over the course of time. They are mainly there to discomfort people who like to foulmouth all over forums, but this one is, of course, just there as a jack in the box. And you, yourself, have posted one reply and pulled it within seconds of it appearing - you guessed that the lens identified as a 70-200mm f2.8 SSM was a 28-75mm f2.8, and deleted your post before any other replies were made.

David

[Winston]

Ur a funny guy, DK....I pulled my 'lens guess" post because I suspected it was incorrect 2 seconds after I posted it! This has nothing to do with protecting Sony from Nikon and Canon users. Man, you are grasping at straws today, my friend.

-Sonolta

Oh please...

The chart was missing a vital piece of information (y-axis label). The result is that it was likely to be misinterpreted and could have easily be misused...a very good reason to pull it. You pulled your post to protect your reputation.

Good reasons on both cases.

[Winston]

Twist my words all you want. The only thing I questioned was a perceived forum reliability issue.

[Winston]

That was not my first post. By then, was starting to realize what happened...he had done what I was trying to suggest that he do. Have a nice day.