Three Things You Should Know About Konica Minolta

1. Did you know that the first photograph of Earth was taken with a Minolta camera?

• NASA—the National Aeronautics and Space Administration—bought the camera at a drugstore back then for $40. Adjusted for inflation, that would be $408 today. A great deal for NASA. If you also love a good deal, be sure to read on to the end of this post.
• This very first photograph of Earth was taken by John Glenn in 1962.
• Glenn was the first American to fly in orbit around the Earth, following Yuri Gagarin’s earlier flight. Gagarin’s spacecraft did not have a camera on board.

2. Did you know that intellectual property is incredibly important to Konica Minolta?

• That’s because Minolta became embroiled in a major patent infringement lawsuit with Honeywell in the early 1990s. The financial consequences were so severe that Minolta was forced to merge with Konica in 2003.
• Today, Konica Minolta holds more than 50,000 patents. I don’t know of any other company that publishes an annual report on its intellectual property, but Konica Minolta does (https://lnkd.in/e-HmKCYH).
• We at Kepler Vision Technologies also have a substantial patent portfolio of our own: 20 granted patents, and 6 additional ones that will be granted in 2025. For a company of our size, that’s a lot. Think of us as a little kid who knows karate: our patents give partners the assurance that Kepler’s software does not infringe on the rights of others.

3. Did you know that Konica Minolta sells the Mobotix C71 camera, the first camera to run Kepler’s software as an embedded system?

• The Mobotix C71 / Kepler software bundle helps Konica Minolta tackle the staffing shortage in the healthcare sector. Our software monitors patients in hospitals and long-term care facilities, giving healthcare workers more time to focus on their actual care duties.
• The technical advantage of running our software as embedded software rather than on a server is that it eliminates the single point of failure. You no longer need a redundant server.
• The Mobotix C71 camera is selling like hotcakes because it comes with our software. It’s a great deal. And if you’re wondering whether you can get a deal as good as the one NASA got back then, contact Serkan Kocabey, PRINCE2, Yushi Takagi, Inoue S., Jacek Weglarz, Mark Hambly, Vaclav La Rose Kovarik, or Attila Szucs.

And Serkan Kocabey, PRINCE2…. thanks for letting me borrow your tie for a moment while the photo was being taken!