[thxbb12]

Pentax doesn't own any market, so what are their choices? To close shop? Is that really better than moving forward?

Ricoh Imaging is doing very well on the 360o market but Theta alone can't sustain their ambitions. OTOH, the 645 and the K-1 are regarded as successful products .

 

Reality check:

- Pentax' best chance was with their existing customer base

- we know as a fact that they were right to make the K-1

- the MILC market is shrinking as well

- the DSLR market is still about 3x as large as the MILC one

 

IMO Pentax's best chance was to start anew with mirrorless years ago, when the only descent mirrorless system was MFT.

If they had ditched their DSLR line to start from scratch like Fuji did, I bet they would be in a much better position than they are today.

Of course they would have had to develop adapters for their existing lenses, similarly to what Sony did.

All in all it would have been a much smarter move given Pentax's history of compact lenses and body. It would have made much more sense with mirrorless technology and they would be uniquely positioned. Think of the pancake designs they could have released. Excepting for a few lenses, none of the manufacturers offer this today.