It's a fact that many of the German makers are competing with
Japanese counterparts, some of whom make products in Southeast
Asian countries where labor costs are appallingly cheap. I mean
appallingly because the wages these people are paid are a shade
above slave labor. That's another discussion, of course.  As we
know, as Japanese society became more affluent, manufacturing
costs rose. There are so many factors that this could just go on
endlessly: use of plastics, mass production vs. hand built,
individual testing vs. random testing, and on and on.  However,
I think the original post presents an interesting idea. Why not
combine efforts to develop a product that could be successful
and price competitive? Makes sense to me. It would make sense
for Leica and Zeiss to jointly develop a digital M camera, for
example. Each could still continue to offer their own lenses.
But cost of research and development and manufacturing would be
shared -- even if the camera is made by Cosina in Japan. Same
goes for digital