Uploaded to TPF June 2,2014 in this thread: http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/canon/360038-convince-me-switch-canon-4.html

"Canon has a long, rich history in imaging; when Canon was started as a brand, they had zero lens making expertise, so for roughly their first decade, they payed Nippon Kogaku to make all their lenses for their new Canon cameras. Nippon Kogaku...you know, Nikon. The early Canon cameras shipped with Nikon lenses. Kind of weird, but that was a long, long time ago, before Canon acquired lens-making technology and know-how, and before Canon diversified into other areas, like office automation equipment.

I would say, switch to Canon for their rich tradition in electronic typewriters, word processors, and calculators. The people at Canon have always been smart; after all, they hired Nikon to make their first decade's worth of lenses for them, which was a pretty smart move, since Canon rangefinders had to compete in a marketplace that had the leading brands in 35mm rnagefinder cameras, which were the Leitz-made Leica III-series cameras, and Zeiss-Ikon's Contax-branded cameras and lenses. Without Nikon's lens-making and lens-designing expertise, Canon might have flopped and never made it as a camera company."