One of the reasons, over the years, that the Japanese Photographic Industry has been so successful is that the companies did cooperate with each other and the are the MASTERS of badge marketing. Many folks don't realize that the old Bronica line of MF SLRs were built in the Nikon factory and sported Nikon lenses. There were many other such situations. Hoya makes most of the "brand name" filters. If the companies find that it is not cost effective to make certain parts or componants the simply outsource them to other companies that can do a better or a more efficient job. At one time there were only 4 major factories in Japan making dozens of different brand names. Many of the brands, called themselves "marketing companies".
If you look at the base of some now collectible classic Japanese cameras you might be surprised to see the same "logos" or trade marks on many different brands next to the "Made on Japan" engraving on their base plates. Please excuse my bad phonetic spelling- Nippon-Konamtzu, Kyosara, S/M (Mamya) were 3 of the factories. I think they did not worry too much about competition within Japan. They probably were more interested in blasting the German and American camera manufactures out of the world.
Well- there used to be dozens of German cameras- Balda-Agfa- Lica- Voightlander- dozens of folders and others on the consumer and professional cameras and lenses. Aside from fines lenses, I can only think of Lica and possibly Rollei and Linhoff as camera manufacturers. In the U.S.A. all gone- Kodak- Argus- Bolsey- Geaflex- Realist- Bush- Ansco- Revere- Ciro- Kalmar- Omega and many others- all distant memories- HISTORY!
Sony?- can't be all that bad. Remember those Bata-Cam ENG cameras?- used to be industry standard. They have been in electronic imaging for a long time!
Years ago, I learned allot about the Japanese photo industry from an old fried and my first photographic dealer, Joseph Erinrich of the old Penn Camera in NYC. He brought over the first Nikon range fide cameras from Japan when most Japaneses cameras were considered to be junk and created a revolution. He later founded EPOI the main U.S. importer of better Japaneses equipment for many years. He was one of the idea men behind the Japanese Camera Institute which set up quality control standards and guarantees on all Japanese equipment- remember that little oval sticker?
Ed
