>>3157097They can. It's completely normal across nearly all industries that a company subcontracts design work. But we'll see. Nothing has been confirmed yet.
Personally I don't see Sony selling an old processor to anyone.
When something as special as a camera processor becomes outdated, its production ends. In the unlikely event that someone deliberately wants to buy old technology, you would have to expand your manufacturing capabilities, because you need newer processors yourself. And that will most likely cost more than you'll ever get from selling those processors to a small company such as Zenith.
It's also possible that Sony has reserve in their plant and can produce old and new processors simultaneously but there's really no reason to sell the old one, because the difference between manufacturing costs of latest generation processors and the ones before is negligible.
In addition to that, Sony's imaging and semiconductor business units are separate, so they can freely sell the latest tech to anyone. Doesn't matter which business unit makes the profit. That's why Nikon can get those excellent Sony sensors, i.e. the semiconductor unit doesn't have to protect the imaging unit.
And if they have old stock, it would be a supply issue for Zenith. Having a finite amount of a component available will cause issues.
Lastly if Sony and Zenith collaborate, they will try to make the best camera they can. For one, if Sony has agreed to collaborate, they don't see Zenith as a threat or a direct competitor and I don't think Zenith could or wants to be a competitor. Because of this, Sony can make an additional profit and the better the new camera will be, the more people will buy it. That also means that they can use whatever technology they see fit and an old processor most likely isn't on the list. If the camera is part of the E-system, it would decrease the overall appeal of the system. Zenith will make niche luxury-ish product, so no reason to water it down.
