OpenRAW

There are several questions concerning this entire issue which seem to bear discussion. First: Nikon's Advisory Release. It seems that Nikon is claiming that third party software manufacturers will have access to their RAW files through their SDK. I gather that there is something about having to access their RAW files in this manner which is unacceptable (from a software developer's point of view), and I'd like to understand better why that is so.

But assuming that this is an attempt to lock out third party software vendors from its proprietary format as many have asserted, I also find it difficult to imagine what Nikon thinks it is going to gain out of such a "strategy." I'm a Canon user myself. I don't really use Canon RAW tools supplied with my camera. I use Photoshop. I might use the pre-packaged software if I couldn't affort Photoshop or if I really thought that Canon's software delivered some image quality benefit over what Photoshop's RAW converter can offer. Which begs the question: isn't Nikon Capture free with their cameras? Where's the payoff in making their free software the only practical option? And even if it weren't free, and even if Nikon had some "super app" waiting in the wings for which it were going to charge serious money: is there really a viable business model for Nikon in maintaining some kind of strangle-hold on their proprietary format? I just don't see how it is that a maker of first rate hardware can assume not merely that it can be a player in the image processing software space, but that it can hope to dominate that space by squeezing out the veterans (and behemoths at that) in the software image processing space. It seems unlikely (and unbusinesslike) that Nikon is merely concerned with other people "making a buck" off their proprietary format. In a nutshell: it seems like the same mistaken decision that Apple Computer made all those years ago when it decided that its OS could only run on it's own hardware. The claims sounded remarkably similar: Steve Jobs was well known to be mistrustful of anything that might contaminate the pristine integration of his OS and his hardware. Meanwhile, Bill Gates realized that the path to success from a business perspective was to become not necessarily the best, but to become ubiquitous. The best way to do that was to allow any hardware manufacturer to license the OS. Hence, to the chagrin of myself and hundreds of thousands of others, a superior product is now relegated to the smallest slice of market share.

Nikon does not need to, if it does not want, lose "The trilogy of performance... ensuring faithful reproduction of the photographer’s creative intentions through consistent performance and rendition of the images," (to quote its advisory). Photographers will continue to have that option available for as long as Nikon continues to produce its own capture software. However, if photographers are not using that software, but instead prefer the workflow/features/UI or what have you of Photoshop or Capture One or Picture Window Pro or any one of a host of applications specifically designed for specific needs, then clearly that sacred "trilogy of performance" as defined by Nikon isn't the same as that defined by its customers.

If Nikon thinks that it knows what its customers need better than its customers do, then it seems that someone needs to be fired over there.

I welcome any input/speculation as to what Nikon really thinks it will gain by going down this road, because I'm sure I don't understand it.