I guess I remember reading this a long while back:
http://www.topconpositioning.com/news-events/single/item/topcon-sokkia-combine-to-create-worlds-leading-survey-instruments-supplier/
but it never hit home until I was flipping through POB this afternoon.
Topcon comes out with their newest GPS, the HiPer2, which is a yellow version of Sokkia GRX1. Then I looked more at their total stations, blue and yellow versions of the same thing.
What is the point of marketing 2 colors of the same product?
I was a happy when Javad was working with Topcon, because I thought it brought them to the top of the GPS game. Javad was unhappy by the end of the relationship, and he started his own company again, I was hoping that Topcon was going to keep moving forward in their innovation, but now I am not so sure. It sure looks like they just tried to buy the tech, like they did in the past. Topcon GPS used to equal old Trimble stuff, then they were the green Javad stuff, now looks like the Blue Sokkia stuff. Just kinda looks strange to me.
Very few companies in the world have an RTK board of their own.
Topcon and Leica do not. Leica belongs to Hexagon group who also bought Novatel. Novatel have their own boards.All Chinese suppliers that I know of, do not have their own boards. It seems Trimble preempted Novatel sales because all the Chinese gps suppliers I check, they now use Trimble boards. 220 channels Trimble, 216 Javad, 120 Leica and 72 Topcon.
Carlson RTK is also using Novatel boards
You are partly correct, the HiperII is a GRX1 painted yellow except the ports for the old Hipers are supposed to work with the Topcon version but not the Sokkia version (unless they changed their minds)
The total stations continue to be 2 different brands made differently. This may change in the future as well, but for now the SETX instruments and SRX Robot is completly different from the Topcon offering....
PSS