Konica Minolta withdraw from camera business: Digital Photography Review:
konica minolta Announces Withdrawal Plan for Camera Business and Photo Business

It's not like they're out totally - it's more that they're withdrawing their brand from the market. The way I read it, they'll still be selling their cameras, just under the Sony brand - so they'll keep up the R&D side of things.

Sounds good to me - I get the feeling that there are too many players trying to be big in the higher end digicam market - little consolidations like this do reduce consumer choice a bit, but they also should serve to increase overall quality. Well, I figure so, anyhow.