Originally posted by rfortson Pentax is not Sony, Canon or Nikon, and they don't have the marketing budgets the others do. Yes, all the churn disrupted marketing, but with Ricoh (which has a camera history) at the helm, I think they will start to turn that around. However, I never expect them to have large ad campaigns and shelves of products. I don't think they can afford that level of marketing. When's the last Leica ad campaign you saw? Or when did you last handle one?
Outside of Sony SLR's I've given up on Sony; even though I must confess to having a Sony A900 and also a pocket Sony HX-5 (10mp w/ 10x optical, but not zeiss) and also formerly a V1, but with Zeiss. I was quite disappointed with the nex 5, and the very ongoing problem that Sony has had in trying to get the nex 7 market for many, many months.
As for Leica; I own two of their cameras, and have been a Leica owner since 85. The cameras are in fact not all that well marketed in North America, but you'll see it marketed all over the place throughout other regions of the world. Their optics on the other hand (such as spotting scopes or rifle scopes) are in fact marketed well just about everywhere.
I think that Pentax is already well on the way to turning around and becoming a major player again. At least it's not as bad as Olympus. The K-01 is solid all by itself; and guess what... I think that this "K-01 line" will most likely be expanded upon (greatly) in the future - perhaps within one year.