FWIW, .02 from another perspective. Its been interesting watching Leica deal with some of these issues of marketing. communication and open development with the DMR and the M8.Watching them change from a discrete and proud small quality manufacturer of lenses and cameras into a new type of company, with a nimble open organization dealing with a lot of electronic issues has been just fascinating. Along the way there are:
- the consumer expectations that they ought to be just as good as Canon and Nikon in their delivery of prduct, pricing, information, etc. That's a bit tough for a small company.
- also expectations that the product should be flawless - a reasonable one, but one which truthfully should be noted doesn't happen too often these days, and even less with smaller production companies making sophisticated product. We tend to forget soem of the Canon/Nikon mistakes of the past.
Finally, there is the joy of their consumer base, with very little tolerance for mistakes, and (in part, due to the 'net) is pretty hard edged about any mistakes. There something about email... that just can slide to the negative pretty quickly.
One example - Leica relaeased by mistake a firmware upgrade for the M8 for about 10 minutes on their site, and quickly withdrew it. Within 24 hours, it was widely distributed, compared, critiqued and discussed broadly. They were of course shocked at the speed with which this happened.
The long andshort of it is that almost anything Leica (read Rolle here too...) does as they adjust to this new world can get them a lot of grief if they make the slightest hickup.
So imagine - a world with fast communication, high expectations, low tolerance for mistakes, and complex product. Its no surprise then that Sinar decides to communicate with a very measured tone in their message. If I were they, and watching what happens out here in the consumer frontier, I'd tread very cautiously as well.
Sure, we'd like more information - but lets remember - this is a camera body, and a revamping of an existing product line. This isn't a totally new system from scratch. The lenses exist, new ones are probably a pretty sure bet (same manuf, same quality levels). The backs exist.
So from this point of view, I'm willing to cut them some slack and be a bit patient. I have every expectation they will deliver. I only hope they can do well enough within the US to get some real distribution and street presence.
Geoff