With current financial state, should Olympus go the Fuji way and upgrade EM1 through firmwares rather than spend money on the new models? EM1 is as it is an excellent camera and may be few remaining quirks can be handled by firmware.
Wouldn't the "current financial state" make it more necessary to sell more cameras rather than giving away free firmware upgrades?
What makes you think that those things are negatively correlated?
Every camera ever made has quirks.
If you can fix them all with firmware upgrades, then you are giving your customers no good reason to ever upgrade.
What do you thing is a good reason for users to upgrade? Do you really think that if I buy a camera and feel dissatisfied with it, that I will immediately buy a new model that fixes those shortcomings? I don't think it works that way. I'm more likely to feel buyer's remorse and buy a competing product next time.
I am not saying you shouldn't fix problems.
I think you have completely misunderstood what Fuji is doing. Fuji releases cameras CHOCK FULL OF BUGS, then fixes them later with firmware upgrades. This shouldn't be seen as a good thing. It should be seen as releasing products that aren't fully tested.
Their X100 camera probably holds a record for this. When Dpreview did their full review they found 21 major issues! Most of them were fixed with firmware, and those that weren't were fixed in the X100S and X100T models, but no one can accuse Fuji of doing a great job getting things right the first time.
Olympus, on the other hand, releases products that are "almost ready" and have relatively few problems that can be fixed with firmware.
So.... take your pick. Either buy cameras that work pretty well right out of the box, or buy cameras that require CONSTANT firmware upgrades to make them usable.
I just don't see the need for constant fixes as a sign of good manufacturing and engineering.
I'm generally with you that the "release first, fix later" is far from perfect. But it's still better than "release and forget".
And Olympus is not in either of those categories. And I'd argue that their current policy of updating their top cameras is the best thing they can do to sell more of them. It's been almost 2 years since E-M1 got released, and after all those updates it still matches well with the latest and greatest competitors.
And which camera you'd rather spend money on, one that you know will be supported throughout its life cycle with both fixes and feature improvements alike? Or one that will be replaced in 16 months with newer, almost identical model, that makes minor improvements, but makes your camera obsolete (in the sense that it just lost most of its resale value and is no longer "up to date" with the newest offerings or competition)?
And there's also user loyalty and confidence at play. That level of post-release support builds both. E-M1 users are not your average Joes that buy a camera with a kit lens and never change it. Those are mostly high value users that already spent significant amount of money on a camera, and will most likely spend even more on the lenses and accessories. When those users are confident that their camera will stay relevant for a considerable period of time, they are much less likely to switch to whatever newest and greatest competition comes out.
And other users/consumers see what's happening as well. Now that I see what level of support E-M1 receives, I will be much more likely to upgrade to higher end camera. Before, it made little sense to me to go for the top model. Sure, it's a bit better, but what's the point of spending so much money on a camera that will be "obsolete" within a year or so, when some new model comes out with some new feature? And it doesn't matter that it's still going to be a great camera. You can't ignore psychology. And having your users second guessing their purchase or having buyer's remorse is not something you want as a company.
If I were an E-M1 user, I would be a very satisfied Olympus customer is what I'm trying to say.
