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PMA 2003 Report
John Watson
Vice President

Little Minox had a BIG PMA.

That about sums it up. PMA is the Photo Marketing Association's conference, where all the companies involved with photography and imaging gather to show off their wares and compare notes.

Minox showed well. Very well.

This is a real change of fortune for Minox relative to their place in the scheme of things. With the waning of 8x11 as a consumer format, and the GT series drifting from the mainstream, Minox was barely noticed for the last decade or more. With the management take over by Thorsten Kortemeier and his team, Minox really started a recovery. This was, oddly, in the introduction of their sport optics lines. Knowing that Thorsten came to Minox from Leica, and was heavily involved in their binoculars, does remove some of that mystery. If you look at any good hunting magazine you will probably see the very positive reviews of these very high quality binoculars and scopes.

In cameras though, Minox was suffering. The technology revolution, both with APS and digital, seemed to be passing them by, turning them into a company that made very small, high-precision dinosaurs.

And suddenly, it changed. This whole change of fortune can be described in one word: Cute.

Continued in The Minox Memo, Spring 2003, Volume 2, Number 2, Series 2.

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