Last week in an interview with Bloomberg and reiterated in additional interviews with other Japanese business press, Nikon's incoming CEO did the FUD leak thing, stating that Nikon will have an entry in the mirrorless lineup "...any time this fiscal year or the following year." Technically, that gives them until April 2012 to ship it. I think I could design one from scratch in that time ;~).
Personally, I had expected this camera in September, but it appears it has slipped to the January-March time frame, probably not to get lost in other camera announcements we'll see later this summer (the D90 replacement being the biggest of those).
Because Nikon has filed so many patents in the mirrorless area (some of which I haven't seen referred to yet), it was a foregone conclusion that such a camera was being worked on. But I'll repeat something I wrote before: Nikon still has a surprise camera up its sleeve (in other words, it's not the mirrorless model), one that I've not seen much, if any, speculation on so far. I don't know if it has been dropped from release consideration or if Nikon is just keeping it in their back pockets for a real surprise.
When I was in Japan earlier this year I met with Nikon executives to present my ideas on the Camera Redefined. The conversation around my presentation let slip a few other details that I haven't seen anywhere. I'll not repeat them here out of respect to those at the meeting (I was not under NDA nor paid by Nikon as many have assumed). However, at least one of the details of the mirrorless camera will be a surprise, I think. Nikon has picked up on some of the wording from my presentation, by the way: Kimura-san said in one of the interviews "Redefinition of photography may become necessary." (I didn't use the words "may become," I used the word "is".)
Specifically, photography has always been a linear process with a narrow workflow. In film that was easy to see: exposed film went to the processor, then the printer, then the customer. The digital world has long mostly mimicked that workflow. My contention has been and continues to be that the camera must be redefined so that it is (near) the center of the workflow, not just the start of it. Obviously, I've compiled lots of details and use scenarios about what that means. For a hint, see Camera Redefined. (Put another way, the Camera Redefined article is only the tip of the iceberg of what I put together. Indeed, what I presented to Nikon was only a bit more of the iceberg, not everything I'd come up with.)
One thing I want to reiterate from Camera Redefined is this: future cameras have to be modular, communicating, and programmable. It's probably not good enough to be just one or two of those. Each requires the others to completely fulfill the premise of a long-term solution that reinvents photography. It's easiest to see with communication: if you build a camera with 3G or 802g communications, it becomes obsolete quickly as the communications platforms change. Thus, modularity into the communications capabilities is required. Cellphones get away with not being modular because their costs are subsidized by the carriers. The act of constantly replacing them every year or two plays to the carriers need to lock you into their service. Likewise, if you program Facebook or Flickr or PictureTown or any other social media into the camera, it can't be locked code because these sites change (nearly constantly). Such capability almost certainly has to be separated out into an app, thus the camera has to be programmable.
Meanwhile, from leaked documents I've seen that appear to be real Olympus Japan internal publications, it seems clear to me that Olympus will likely be the first to present to the market a truly modular camera similar to what I suggested for sensors in Camera Redefined. The scale of leaks out of Olympus in recent months indicate a pattern to me of controlled and intentional leakage. Perhaps Olympus is looking to road test aspects of their upcoming camera designs to see how they play with the general public. If not, then Olympus R&D is being very sloppy right now.