Look, maybe we can put and end to this nonsense. NO-ONE posting here (including Ian) has the slightest clue why Yamaha chose not to participate in this profitable market segment. NO-ONE. Opinions offered by the 'naysayers' are as uninformed as the rest of us. You are all just guessing. Your philosophy of 'my company/religion/choice of brand is the market leader, therefore ALL their decisions MUST be correct is as absurd as your position that your friends (or whatever you think of us) here have gone delusional in thinking that Yamaha COULD make money in this segment.

You have no more FACTS to back you up than we do. In fact you have no facts at all (other than the fact that Yamaha don't make a 76 PSR). Just idle conjecture. We, on the other hand, DO have the fact that every single other manufacturer DOES make a profit on a quality 76 arranger.

But, in looking at the whole thing, I think something Ian guessed at a while back is probably the TRUE reason Yamaha chose not to make this product. Divisional rivalry. Yamaha want to keep the DGX line afloat, and making a 76 S900 would go a LONG way to killing that off. Roland and Korg don't have the same fractured divisional structure, so are able to produce the product without treading on any divisional toes.

Now, whether this is a 'good decision' because it basically has no relation to the marketplace, only to intra-corporate relations and rivalries is debatable. But it is quite easy to see, under these circumstances, that it has nothing to do with whether the product itself is needed or would be profitable. The decision is being made to preserve divisional and organizational differences in a large corporation.

The idea that if a company dominates sales in ONE area, then all their decisions in OTHER areas MUST be right is absurd. If Ford make a great compact, and dominate the market, does that make any decision they make about the luxury car market automatically correct? No, it does not (as demonstrated by just about every corporation that works diverse markets). Success at ONE thing does not bestow prescience about anything else. This decision is NOT being made out of any knowledge about the market (Yamaha obviously know by now there's a demand for the product!). It is being made to preserve the fiefdom of some corporate manager of a rival division. If that's good enough for YOU, have at it! It doesn't strike me as a 'good' decision, just a pragmatic one.

But what is good for Yamaha's corporate structure is NOT necessarily good for the arranger users. For all the posturing, it has been fairly obvious from the poll and discussion that there is a fairly high demand for the product, despite what the status quo defenders would have you believe. The reason that things got a bit crazy round here has mostly come from having to listen to die hard Yamaha fanatics (sorry, guys, but little you have said now or in the past give any credibility to your 'my company right or wrong' attitude) jump through hoops to try and explain something that ONLY makes sense to a corporate manager, not an arranger player.

There IS a high demand for the product, it WOULD make a handsome profit, it WOULD put strong pressure on the success of it's competitors products. All worthy goals. But it isn't being produced to preserve a corporate divisional structure. And that, my friends, does NOT constitute a 'good reason' in MY book.

'My corporation, right or wrong'...? OK, then. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.