Sigma has announced YAMRZ (yet another mid-range zoom). The Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 DC Macro is another attempt to find the right formula for the all-in-one lens. Perhaps I'm jaded, but I find the use of "revolutionary" in press releases of such lenses increasingly irritating. The 7.9" constant near focus limit is supposed to be the thing that makes this new lens so appealing, but that only gets us to 1:2.3 at 70mm, and as a walk around, general purpose lens, that macro ability would be a lot more appealing with some form of image stabilization (1:2 is near impossible to handhold well).
More interestingly, Zeiss has announced a new ZF line of lenses in the Nikon F mount. Essentially, they're the old Contax lenses with modest tweaks in a new mount. While the lenses in question are high in quality--for example the Planar 50mm f/1.4 is often claimed to be the best 50mm produced for the 35mm format--the fact that they're manual focus only and of focal lengths that aren't particularly exciting for Nikon DSLR work limits my enthusiasm somewhat (the 50mm f/1.4 has a potential to be the new 85mm f/1.4 for Nikon digital, though). These lenses are not chipped, which allows them to meter only with the D1, D2, and D200 bodies. Zeiss has promised to deliver the 50mm and an 85mm f/1.4 in spring, with more lenses to follow later in the year. What we really want is a true DX wide angle of Zeiss quality, but given the current Zeiss line-up, I don't expect one.