Shakeout in the mirrorless market

Pentax has no future if it just stays in APS-C DSLR, which is so dominated by Canikon and which is a shrinking market. There is some talk of a FF later, which seems nothing more than wishful thinking from die-hard owners of old Pentax lenses. Even if Pentax does release some FF model, it would probably sell about 50 of them. Who would spend that kind of money in a new FF system, with little native lenses and from a maker that has such a tiny market share and little in the way of professional support and service. Selling to the same old Pentax diehards is not enough.

OTOH Pentax has nothing in terms of a credible MILC solution, just a couple of toys. The best option would be to join M43. Remember that Kodak (JK Imaging) is said to release a M43 camera in the 3rd quarter. That's a start. Sigma and Samsung should also join and have an easy path, to take advantage of the existing range of quality and small lenses. Fuji and Sony should have too, but all this is making too much sense. They do not see the opportunities in having a big user base to sell their own products that they can still distinguish in various ways, e.g. Fuji's X-Tran and hybrid OVF/EVF, Sigma's Foveon, Samsung's AMOLED touchscreens and Android know-how, Sony's focus peaking and so on. I think they are only looking at the current M43 or the current MILC market size and not at the potentially growth of the market to 10 times bigger if M43 becomes more of a standard.

It would seem stupid for Olympus and Panasonic to make it hard for others to join and make M43 cameras. After all, we know that lenses are much more lucrative than camera, and these partners have all the lenses. Opening the path to other players would only mean more lens sales, and importantly, greatly expanding the market. They would reap early benefits right away with new makers joining and a bigger market share of the total system camera market.  Market share is critical at this time when M43 is trying to reach critical mass, and when the camera industry is sick but due to a change and providing huge potential.

People often said lenses are what make a system. I say standards are even more important in the long run to the success of a system. If more lens and camera makers share the same standard mount, then it would create such a compelling case for consumers by providing value, choices, safety, ... that others simply have no choice but to also join, with benefits to all consumers as well as to makers who are ready to compete and make an honest dollar. M43 has the optimal physical dimension and image quality balance for success as the standard, not to mention the existing range of lenses.  (I still don't see how others can catch up to M43 in terms of lenses, which must mean a very tough uphill path.)  All it takes is some common sense from the weaker camera manufacturers to make things happen, like what happened in the PC industry that advanced in leaps and bounds since standards become universal (memory, bus, power supply, graphics, network products...)

Unfortunately, the smaller camera makers do not get it and often continue on to their graves trying to keep their own mount. Kodak, then Pentax, Sigma and Casio, who's next?