It's always enlightening to see the reactions to what I write. As I've pointed out before, I'm not always right: besides the many facts presented on this Web site reside a lot of my opinions. It's okay to disagree with my opinions. Indeed, I enjoy a healthy debate and have been known to change my mind from time to time. However, it seems that quite a few people are not accurately reading what I wrote (i.e., misquoting my opinion and then disagreeing with it, something that I thought only politicians did).
For example, I'm now being quoted as saying "DX (APS) is a dead end" or "DX (APS) is going away." I didn't write that, and I don't think that. I was specifically speaking of camera designs currently "in the middle," like the Nikon D90 (I've removed the Canon reference to make that more clear, as the 50D represents the top of the Canon APS lineup). The middle is a tricky place, especially if the two extremes start shifting away from the traditional DSLR designs as I opined.
Imagine, for example, a future where Nikon has a D35, D45, and D55 that are all some DX variant of an EVIL (Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens) design, while the high-end has evolved to a more modular and FX (and possibly FX+) approach. At that point, a "tweener" camera has to pick which side it wants to be more strongly associated with, I think. It's either the top of the consumer (EVIL) side, or the bottom of the pro side (FX, modular). For awhile, you can get away with just executing a value-priced traditional DSLR in that spot (e.g., the D90), but long-term I think you have to make a choice and break with tradition. Why? Because you can't successfully sell a "past" design for long when the public believes that the market has changed (look how fast film SLRs disappeared). Moreover, you start getting parts and manufacturing costs that are problematic. Nikon's been incredibly good at maximizing parts usage across models in the DSLR era--they're not going to give up that cost advantage to keep producing one or traditional models.
The problem is that if a current "tweener" drifts towards EVIL, that makes it a big leap across to a more traditional, modular, high-end FX world. If the "tweener" drifts towards the higher end, that makes for a big leap from EVIL to high end. Personally, I'm not sure what the design space answer is, but I'm pretty sure it isn't "just iterate what you've got." Put another way: D70->D80->D90 ends there, I think. What follows the D90 is not likely to be a traditional DSLR with a mid-range feature set. I'd bet on a high-end EVIL with an extended feature set.
(While a Nikon DX EVIL could, like the Micro 4/3, shorten the mount-to-sensor distance, I'm not sure Nikon will do that. I don't see a huge advantage to making cameras thinner if they can't fit in a pocket (with a non-collapsing lens, almost any EVIL will be too big). The D40/D40x/D60 proves that APS with the current mount can be adequately small. The ability to use all those existing manual focus Nikkors on an EVIL would be incentive for Nikon to do what they've always done: keep the mount. Besides, we may have a new Nikon mount variation coming elsewhere in the lineup, we don't want two new ones. ;~)
Which brings me to another point where I've been misquoted and misinterpreted: Nikon's place in the market. (I've since changed one word in my original essay, below, which I hope will better focus those readers who didn't get the original point.) Historically--I'll repeat that word since it's the one that replaced "traditionally" in the original essay: historically--Nikon hasn't been particularly successful at producing long strings of successful consumer products. They've had plenty of short-term winners, starting as far back as the Nikkormat (Nikomat in Japan). But until the string of consumer cameras that started with the D70, Nikon has never managed to keep a consumer success truly going and build it so substantially that they took a leadership position that they then sustained. The current consumer success that started with the D70 and now includes the D90 is the longest and best consumer streak they've had, but even Nikon is backing away from predicting that it'll continue.
Meanwhile, the weakness of the Coolpix line has slowly allowed others to push Nikon's overall camera share downward--Nikon isn't in the top five any more. The problem is that this is the meat of the market, even for Nikon. Of Nikon's 8m or so cameras produced last year, nearly 90% would fall under the "consumer" label. So let's look at how Nikon fares sub-category by sub-category:
- low-cost, modest compacts: Nikon has a relatively full line of me-too cameras. They aren't distinguished in price, performance, or capabilities.
- high-specification compacts: The P6000 has some potential, as it has some unique capabilities (notably GPS), but it also reflects some questionable design decisions (LAN support adds price with little benefit, no true raw support), and Nikon still hasn't figured out how to get good AF performance in a compact. The other Coolpix models in this group are basically undistinguished.
- bridge and EVIL cameras: Nikon doesn't have any (I'd put the P80 in the high-spec category).
- low-end DLSRs: the seriously outdated D40 and D60.
- high-specification consumer DSLRs: the D90.
Now do you see why I assess Nikon's long-term consumer position as weak? Except for the D90 (for the moment), Nikon has no product that's strongly defendable against what we already know is available or about to be available from others, and it currently doesn't appear that we'll get any significant announcement of something that changes the consumer side until PMA 2009 at the earliest (any Nikon pre-Christmas surprise announcement this year is likely to be pro-level in nature; check back in November ;~).