Michael Reichmann from the Luminous Landscape published this article “A View of the Photographic Industry From 30,000 Feet”. Here’re the summary on his views on the photographic industry:

Megapixel - The great Megapixel Race appears to be over. From the roughly 3 Megapixel Nikon D1 and Canon D30 of late 1999 and early 2000, to today’s mainstream 6 – 8 Megapixel and top of the line 12-16 Megapixel models, we now seem to have reached a point of equilibrium. More Megapixels aren’t what most photographers need. We need better Megapixels, and the manufacturers seem to have realized this.

Alliances and Shakeout #2 - Departures and consolidations continue among camera makers, with more likely to come. Last year and early this year saw the demise of Contax and Konica Minolta, There may be others in the months ahead. Mamiya is looking particularly frail at the moment.

To forestall this there are new alliances forming. Sony has allied itself with KM’s technology, while Olympus has teamed with Panasonic to keep the 4/3rd format moving forward. Panasonic has also created an alliance with Leica, and Pentax has joined forces with Samsung. We saw Hasselblad get absorbed by Imacon, and also farm out some of its design and manufacturing to Fuji.

Shows and No-Shows - I’m always curious when I attend trade show to see who’s there, how big their booth is, and what their “story” is about this time. Conspicuous by their absence were quite a few companies. Mamiya was a no-show, along with Leaf. Hasselblad / Imacon did not have a stand on the floor of the show, only a private meeting room.
Printer Wars - Epson has done more to advance the science and technology of photographic printing over the past 10 years that anyone else. They are to be commended for this. But, its been a one horse race. With its K3 Pigment inks, and current generation of photographic printers, Epson owns the fine art and professional printer marketplace.

But that’s about to change. Both Canon and HP have decided to challenge that hegemony with their own wide format pigment ink printers. Of particular interest is Canon’s imagePROGRAF iPF5000. This is a wide carriage 12 ink printer, introduced at PMA, that will retail for less than $2,000. Individual ink cartridges are large, heads are self cleaning and user replaceable, and paper paths include roll, front, rear and paper tray. In addition to the usual Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Light Cyan, Light Magenta, Matte Black, Photo Black, Light Black, and Light Light Black cartridges, Canon has added Red, Blue and Green. No cartridge changing is required when switching from matte to glossy papers.

Website :  A View of the Photographic Industry From 30,000 Feet - PMA 2006