That’s not actually fair. The ColorMunki has a totally new color engine, one that builds quite excellent profiles with only 100 patches, due to its two step process along with the new iteration option. For higher end work, X-Rite did release the OBC target/products for use with the iSis. They released the Passport for the creation of DNG profiles and other WB tasks. Are we impatient in terms of a high end product to replace ProfileMaker Pro and PROFILER? Sure. But to say there’s been no innovation in 5 years simply isn’t true.
The ColorMunki is a significant development, I agree. But for some reason they chose to limit this exciting new technology to their entry-level product, tying it to a measurement device that folks who have already purchased an i1 spectro have no interest in purchasing.
As for Passport, I hardly think taking the concept behind Adobe's free DNG Profiler and making it a bit easier to use (and substantially less flexible) qualifies as innovation.
I don't really follow developments on the uber-high end devices, so I don't have any comment in the iSis OBC. But when it comes to actual
software, I think it's definitely fair to say they haven't done much in the way of significant product releases for their customers. Maybe if they had spent a little less time shuffling around sku's and licensing bundles on PMP5, and they could have gotten i1Profiler out a little sooner. I mean come on, the fact that they tried to announce the
same old stuff as if it was an actual new product last year was just pathetic.
So while I'm looking forward to see what i1Profiler offers, I'm not particularly a fan of the company and I certainly wouldn't consider them "customer-driven".