Hi Peter,
Thanks for your post.
What you say is absolutely right... but: We haven’t had to report any distortions yet, though :(
I’ve never really left any doubt that these are always “planned casting campaigns” or the “planned start of production”. I couldn’t have written anything else anyway.
Even in the first post, the gist was: “These are our achievements so far. That’s where we want to go. But it could all still go wrong.”
We’re working hard and continuously on this here. For two years now. I’ve communicated individual stages of this project – mainly to keep users on board.
Naturally, it is much easier for a third party not involved in production to make a somewhat more precise statement at a later stage, when more facts are on the table.
However, none of us currently knows whether it will be June or whether our announcement (March plus drying + packaging) will be at a different time.
We had MCP cast last week. Whether it is ready for the market will, of course, only become clear after quality control.
In any case, we are doing our best to get the material out as quickly as possible. The remaining stock is finally running low, so the way is clear for something new.
With my post above, I mainly wanted to try and untangle this deliberately sown confusion.
As this seems to be continuing, I’ll go through it again.
1) This is primarily an
announcement from a competitor.
Please bear this in mind when assessing the situation and please read exactly what is written there.
2) It is very important to understand that this was
not an announcement from Agfa.
And I really find it very hard to imagine that Agfa would ever make a similarly worded (misleading) announcement. Incidentally, I consider the use of the Agfa rhombus right at the top of this announcement to be highly questionable from a legal perspective. The publishers would do well to remove it, but that is just a side note.
3) The competitor writes angrily in its announcement:
...the company AGFA-Gevaert has apparently initiated the development of new materials and quietly driven them forward until they were ready for the market.
Here, the word "apparently" is particularly worth noting.
4) Elsewhere, the person making the announcement leaves the back door open a little wider. Here, directly beneath his announcement—in which no expense was spared on red and bold type, and in which the designation MCP 310/312 naturally features prominently—he writes: "We are not acting on the official behalf of third parties."
Here is the link:
http://www.aphog.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4108
Conclusion:
I want you all to understand what is going on here. This so-called “news of the year” has a very specific intention. It is obvious what that is.
Surely this “announcement” was not intended to promote the revival of the MCP/MCC. And it has certainly worked. Everyone is excited – everyone interprets something different from the text – almost everyone gets an impression that does not correspond to the facts.
The initiator is probably sitting back with glee, observing the repercussions of their actions, and if things go wrong, they’ll simply point to the built-in loopholes.
It’s just a shame that an independent, truly outstanding and valuable platform for analogue photography, which I hold in high regard, has allowed itself to be used in this way.
In any case, none of this has served the cause.
I think it really is best for everyone involved to put an end to this now, before the project ends up being damaged after all.
Because then none of the parties involved will get their prints.
Best regards,
Mirko
