Simon,
I don't quite agree. It is not electronic imaging being new to them that is at the root of these problems.
Hasselblad first sold a Hasselblad branded 3-shot "DB 4000" 4 MP digital back, made by Leaf, in the early 1990s (1991 - introduced at the 1992 PhotoKina).
Hasselblad had already founded a subsidiary company, "Hasselblad Electronic Imaging AB", in 1985. They produced some digitizing, image transmitting and image management products, to facilitate the use of images in the printed press.
This choice of product was due to the limitations of the computers available at the time. They struggled to even deal with low resolution (in today's terms) scanned 35 mm format images.
In 1996, Hasselblad entered into a partnership with Dutch electronics company Philips, aimed at developing and producing a 6 MP 24x36 mm digital sensor.
The sensor did materialize (and was later seen in many digital backs, made by various companies to fit Hasselblad cameras), but Hasselblad's planned development of a completely new camera, with full movements, to be used with this chip however did not go as had been hoped.
But Hasselblad, to have a testbed, had already built the sensor into the shell of an A12 film magazine, in effect giving them a fully working 6 MP digital back that could have been sold in its own right. Yet they never did do so.
This Hasselblad/Philips sensor could have given Hasselblad the edge over the competition. But alas, Hasselblad was acquired by a group of venture capitalists, and these 'visionaries' decided there was no money in digital photography, and decreed all work on digital imaging projects to stop in 1997.
They turned Hasselblad's R&D effort towards building an auto exposure, auto focus 6x4.5 cm camera (the H1). This type of camera then enjoyed a certain popularity, and promised a quick return on the venture capitalists' investment.
Hasselblad was however allowed by their owners to form a cooperation with the Foveon Company of Carver Mead in 2000. Mead's three-layer sensor still available today in Sigma DSLRs was first seen in a Hasselblad camera called "DFinity". Only very few s&les were made and sold. They were extremely expensive.
(Whether Mead's chip is, or is not, good enough still appears to be undecided; the Sigma cameras appear not to have gained a significant part of the market.)
In the last year of the H1's design process (2001), the owners finally understood that the future would be digital, and Hasselblad consequently sought cooperation with Kodak and Phase One to make sure the H1 and the backs made by these companies would be a good match.
Meanwhile, the medium format market (which never had been very large) was shrinking very rapidly. The digital wave that swep the market was hitting Hasselblad hard (and other manufacturers too - of the 'large' medium format camera makers, only Hasselblad and Mamiya have survived).
The new owners, Shriro (bought Hasselblad in 2002), recognized that the Hasselblad company had no control over its future in the digital photography market. So instead of continuing to depend on what other companies would or would not do to keep Hasselblad 'alive', they acquired the Danish digital imaging company Imacon and made it part of Hasselblad AB.
Imacon's CEO, Christian Poulsen, was put in charge of Hasselblad. He has shifted the company's focus completely, directing all effort towards digital photography.
Imacon never was the large company Hasselblad was (and compared to Hasselblad, they (!) are the newcomer in the world of complex electronics and digital imaging). But Copenhagen took over as if (!) they, not Gothenburg, were the ones with the business savvy...
And the old original Hasselblad company - the one that offered service second to none - was reduced to almost nothing.
'Service (that of 'Gothenburg', and apparently that of Imablad to their customers) no longer required'.
That is what is at the root of this.
