Originally posted by ftpaddict Is it? I don't know how well the A100 is selling, but the A200 is far too similar to its predecessor to attract that much attention. And no matter how much $$$ Sony pours into marketing the product, if it's crap, it doesn't sell. (someone could mention the 350/400D here, but those sell on legacy alone)
There's too much space between the A200 and A700 in terms of features and price. There might be an in-betweener. The A200 looks like a competitor for the D40x space.
Originally posted by thibs The thing is: Sony has an image in photography but only for guys coming from P&S and at that only digital P&S since Sony in photo market is pretty recent. They have no image in SLR industry, they should have kept Minolta name.
Canon (and Nikon) will always be able to sell crap cameras (not I do not mean they are all, really not). They just have the image of THE company. Like an Intel for example. Some people still think AMD cpus are "not compatible" or whatever BS and disinformation they can eat. This is exactly the same.
Agreed about Sony keeping the Minolta name, but then a lot of the new kids wanting to move up to DSLRs know Sony more than they ever did Minolta, so it might be a good thing in the long run. At least I think there are more Sony fans than Minolta fans, so it's an easier sell, and a "sure thing", at least for a lot of consumers.
As for Canon, yes, they do resort to "evangelizing", but it's probably nowhere near as bad as what Microsoft does. As for Nikon, lately, they've managed to find and create market niches (seen in the success of the D40). And the image that they have as THE company, they created it over time and successful products, R&D, marketing, etc. Pentax certainly had their time as THE company, too, and is a good bet to recapture that image in the near future.