(Picture Credit: Chasing Light)
First of all, see this official press release that published a few hours ago at the Pentax Imaging webiste:-
http://www.pentaximaging.com/about/press/289
Other news websites have reported about this also, for example, this is from the Yahoo News:-
Ned Bunnell to Retire as President of PENTAX RICOH IMAGING AMERICAS CORPORATION; James Malcolm Assumes Responsibilities as Executive Vice President
And the reactions of Pentaxians in the Pentax World, we can have a look at DPR and at the PF, for instance.
It comes to my mind that Ned has still updated his blog yesterday about the difference of K-5II and K-5IIs! Everything occurs just so suddenly and Ned's step-down is meant to be rather urgent with such a rush arrangement with is taken place with an almost immediate effect.
As about Ned, I have very good impressions of him, despite that I still criticised him in particular cases. He is truly a Pentax senior official who has all the passions and exceptional zeal. Moreover, Ned is always a nice and polite person. In fact, I exchanged email correspondence with him for a few times before, for what I was thinking about Pentax and gave him some suggestions of mine. He always read my mail in full and replied with good manners. His open-mindedness and friendliness are actually uncommon, especially for a company head like him.
With the leaving of Ned and now the Pentax Imaging (USA) company will soon be fully controlled under Japanese people of Ricoh (no matter what nationality they are), I am yet again not optimistic about the future of it. It appears to many Pentaxians that it is an iron handed forced retirement and replacement of the whole management of an important local branch of the company.
Ned has to be gone very soon, which is just like stupid Ricoh decided to completely replace the name the prestigious trademark of "SMC" with a so mediocre name of "HD" which nowadays appears in every AV product and thus means nothing. Again, I can safely declare that Pentax is doomed and there is no hope on it than ever before for the brand! Utmost SAD!! >:-(
As far as I can see, the Ricoh management is really stupid and utter non-sense. If they are to lay off Ned, they should not do this around the Photokina time, when the world is looking at them so concertedly. If I were them and still decided to remove the old Pentax Imaging management guys, I should do this in low profile and at a less sensitive time!