Isn't Olympus thinking about phasing out their DSLRs and going mirrorless only?

If that's the case, then the original poster's thoughts aren't that far off.

Right, it was Thom's chart, I think that the other bloke linked it.

Well, deep-linking is frowned upon as the potential lost visitors, but most people here visit his site from time-to-time anyway and there isn't any commertial interest behind linking this. I'd say the image was used for educational purposes and the linker says that the image is by Thom Hogan ;)

Deep-linking is not rude, this is what major sites would want you to believe as they lose revenue if you don't visit their front page. I've run into this with deeplinking news articles at a company I worked for. But in the end they were content with the deeplinking as clients still see the site and the ads on the site.

But you know what they say about an opinion :P

I don't know Thom's personal stance, but deep-linking images is (in general) considered very rude.

The chart in question was by Thom hogan:

If I'm not mistaken, the estimate was based on the number of cameras sold not pictures taken.

I've seen allot of analysis that shows the same line but as an analyst by day myself, I look at the numbers and how they are coming to their conclusions. All of them are counting the amount of photos taken by the type of camera and disregard the use.

Case in point -(For reference-for the last 10 years I have worked on installations of hardware in delivery trucks and took pictures of bar-codes and serial #s.) Up to 5 years ago I used disposable film cameras (8 photos per truck)- then 4-5 years ago I had a D50 (20+/- photos per truck)- 2 years ago I had an advanced compact (20-40 photos)- 1 year ago... My Blackberry(20-40 photos). I take allot more photos with lesser cameras as quality rises. But I'm documenting installs and not taking "good" photos. I also continue to use what is smaller and doesn't add more "stuff" to my travels.

Instances like this for work or little life things the counts go wayyyy up - hence the analysis of the usage for these articles seem to show things are being replaced. But... the market trend of sold units continue to rise for DSLRs on a whole. I think more people are documenting more things than ever and if the use is for documenting I would say that cameras are being replaced - but not for "good" moments at the lower end. At that consumer end a normal trend will occur - larger to smaller then repeat as technology continues to move forward.

Will evil and the Dslr dissolve into a hybrid camera - low end ones will, but the mid and high end models will still continue to exist due to the newest technology will always need more space.

Somewhere I saw a prediction of the camera market future in the form of a line chart (couldn't locate it, might have been Scott Bourne's photofocus.com, it was made over a year ago) but according to that basically the lower end point and shoots will be taken over by mobile/smartphones and the higher end by EVILs. EVILs will also slowly start eating away at the entry level DSLR market.

Actually this kind of makes sense.

kyoshinikon said:Will evil and the Dslr dissolve into a hybrid camera like the bridge kinda did for this fading decade, or is the EVF/EVIL that hybrid?

I'm not sure I'm taking your second question right, but my answer is the same: EVIL is a new product, not a replacement for anything.
As the overall market for X (non-phone cameras in this case) becomes smaller one must do one of three things:
1 - Create a new product trying to redefine the market. In effect temporarely reverse the trend of your segment shrinking by moving the overall walls out.
2 - Create the hands-down best product in your current segment and hope to gain a higher share of that shrinking segment at the cost of your competitors, while still ceding the overall shift.
or
3 - Segment the existing market in to smaller and smaller chunks and try to ensure you are positioned in every possible segment you can.

I believe a Nikon EVIL would be 1 and 3, and if done right could be 2.
I don't believe it will replace the current compacts ever, and I don't believe it will replace any of the DSLRs anytime soon.

IS that what you were asking?

I saw this article today on yahoo http://finance.yahoo.com/news/In-Smartphone-Era-nytimes-1102949571.html?x=0 and it makes me wonder if evil is the way nikon should go.

I know there is a thread sorta like this (and it flopped! http://nikonrumors.com/forum/topic.php?id=1550)but I am posing a different question. Will evil and the Dslr dissolve into a hybrid camera like the bridge kinda did for this fading decade, or is the EVF/EVIL that hybrid?