In reading this post over, perhaps I made another of my famous mistakes (83 you know) Perhaps the thirty million dollar a year income from Technics division of Panasonic, that I attributed to "technicsplayer" was really stated by "Bud Whipple" in one of his
enlightening posts. In any event, I am sorry, remembering that the guy that don't make any mistakes, is a guy that don't DO ANYTHING...........ARJ

Hiya Heather
Trading operation = dealer network...
But good you're beginning to think about the original question in a businesslike manner!
Now I don't decry emotional thinking in fact there is an incredibly good book - best seller - called Emotional Intelligence which covers the subject admirably; but it's useful to consider the rational implications of any proposal as well, don't you think?
Roger M
Aha The Rational versus The Emotional - is that the difference between those that play by ear and those that ned the sheet music in front of them???

Hiya Roger

Your point about emotional vs rational is well made. The capabilities of a musical instrument appeal to the emotional side of us. I can see Matsushitas difficulty. To continue development of a product that appeals to a non-rational emotional side of us, but needs considerable investment in a rapidly changing technology, has got to be commercially risky. Add to that the fact that it is a declining market and the only way that such an activity would continue commercially is if you had a strong "champion" within the company who had the belief in the product. Its got to be easier designing a new vacumn cleaner than a keyboard, especially when the features / facilities evoke such a strong emotional response in the users. Just look at some of the other debates on this site, to see the passions that get aroused. To keep ahead of these you have to employ expert designers / advisers, who dont come cheap, not just to design the technology but to design the machine / human emotional interface. Much more difficult !.

Music will always be popular. But the type of music, and hence the means of making that music will wax and wane in popularity over time. How many crumhorns are sold these days I wonder?. Where this leaves us I don't know but I will be very surprised if anyone does pick up the Techics product line in any commercial way.

Keith