Originally Posted by Stevopedia 
In this economy, people will want to spend less and less, and so those who may have been looking at an entry level DSLR a year ago will probably look at something a bit less expensive, but still at least percieved to be offering comparable picture quality. A cheaper but capable bridge cam makes sense.
Think about it.
And it gets the Pentax name out too. When those people start shopping for their new bridge, and they hear about this 'Pentax', they'll be interested (assuming that they haven't heard of Pentax much, etc) and maybe buy. And when they buy it, when they're ready to move up to a DSLR (better economy, say) they'll probably buy Pentax. Which means more market share, more money for Pentax, more new DSLR models.
The problem is that there are already at least two other bridge cameras with the exact same sensor & lens, from arguably better know names: Nikon (Coolpix P90) & Kodak (Easyshare Z980). We need to wait for the official release to be sure, but so far it looks like the Pentax has nothing much to differentiate it from its clones (it does not even seem to have the articulated back LCD, and there is not mention of weather-sealing in the leaked litteratute).
We'll see, but I'm not impressed so far.