What Leica needed to do was get cameras into people's hand quickly so they could see the imaging performance and start talking about it. They knew there would be good press about the excellent performance of the body and lenses and bad press about the poor performance of the body and lenses. Ha! They know that there will be complaints and positioned themselves to ride the wave over the rocks and come out on their feet and smiling. Two things they would have learnt from the DMR is that
- releasing late is a bad idea - you can't get it perfect anyway; and
- the web is a powerful force for driving sales of top end, enthusiastically awaited and emotionally charged gear like Leica.
The board members sat around the table, weighing up whether to get the new product into users' hands despite concerns from some that it wasn't ready.
"It'll never be ready if we let you engineers keep tinkering with it!" said Marketing. "Have you got the hardware right? Is it just a matter of tweaking firmware and following up with accessories?"
"Yes" replied Engineering.
There was a silence as they contemplated the gravity of the decision they could see the president was about to make.
After a deep breath he said, quietly and slowy "I would rather be criticised for doing something than for not doing something." And then with a clear and firm voice, "The camera is good. The firmware and accessories are coming. The market is primed. We will not let the build up dissipate. We will release the camera now and take any criticism on the chin. Go!"
