... now that KM is out of photo business, many other companies will rethink their strategy and will decide, whether they want to follow Kyocera and KM or to continue to fight in this difficult market.
Im am not sure whether KM will be the last one this year
Although the well known players all made now cooperation with big electronic giants to be able to survive, the KM ex&le showed, that this does not mean that later on it results in consequences the users hoped for.
I would watch Sony closely now. Sony inherits obviously the KM mount. And Sony has strong relationship with Zeiss because of its Cybershot and Camcorder business.
I do not think that the relationship has suffered too much because of the Zeiss/Nokia partnership (mobile phones), if there would be a big business opportunity for other products. And I do think that this opportunity is now there.
Sony gets the KM mount and Sony will get - on demand - also lenses produced by Minolta according to the press release of KM. IMO it would not make sense for Sony, if they would leave it with that. KM has a marketshare in DSLR market of around 3%. If Sony does not make it differently in the future than KM did in the past, they would stay at this marletshar or loose even more.
Therefore it is mandatory for Sony to survive in this DSLR business, that they do things differently. Using their sensors in future DSLRs with KM mount is the obvious next step- But IMO this is not sufficient.
So the best bet would be to offer something in cooperation with Zeiss lenses. This would make all future Sony/KM DSLRs different to the competition. They could market it agressively to gain market share. I do think that this is a very likely scenario. Both, Zeiss and Sony would profit of this DSLR cooperation.
The Nikon leses would be only a nice additional income on top of that. And a marketing possobility for other Zeiss DSLR combinations. Once a Nikon users enjoyed Zeiss glass, he meight be more willing to switch to Sony DSLR in the future.
Looking at the fact that KM has Antishake and Sony gets all assets from KM, this would result in a Sony DSLR with Sony Sensor, Antishake within those bodies and 2 lines of lenses: Minolta for cheaper prices (mass market) and Zeiss for the more demanding costumers (and deeper pockets).
The only thing that disturbs me is, that there would be no incentive anymore for Zeiss to look for a Contax cooperation partner, which would mean the death of the Contax hope.
Maybe Sony has still a joker in his hands for us Contaxians, but it seems for me, that this is onla at good will of Sony.
Whether a Sony/Zeiss System would be better than the Nikon/Zeiss combination ahs still to be prooven. Nikon showed what they are able to do. Sony ahs first to proove that they are able to meet very high expectations of demanding users. P&S is different (easier) than bridge camera users and DSLR users are even more difficult to satisfy in this competitive environment.
C/Y mount is AFAIK not copyright protected anymore. It is too old. But I fear that no camera manufactuerer is willing to risk to invest in a mnaual fokus system.
Just remember: Minolta withdrew yesterday and they sold 16 million lenses already. Canon announced the production of its 30 millionth EF lens yesterday. You can make the math, how mach the sales of KM decreased over the last years and Canon's increased (Canon has over 60% marketshare with DSLRs).
By the way, is it not surprising, that whenever a big news from one manufacturer is coming over the net, any kind of important or not so important Canon news is announced at the same day? This is excellent marketing
Back to Contax: I do not know the complications with the N System to adapt to Sony DSLRs, But as long as Kyocera has to pay every year a high fee to Zeiss for the Contax brand, I am not sure whether it is in Zeiss interests to change this - considering the low sales in that system and their upside to stop the contarct without getting somewhere else the Contax royality fees
So as a Contaxian, I am at the moment still very disappointed. As a Zeiss lens user and potential DSLR buyer, the future might look now better than 6 months ago.
So my advise would be to watch what is coming over the "Sony ticker".
Did I mention already that we have also Sony Forum in our photo community portal?