They are in the same trap as traditional car manufacturers are with combustion engine cars. The profits are in the established technology, yet the writing is on

They are in the same trap as traditional car manufacturers are with combustion engine cars. The profits are in the established technology, yet the writing is on the wall for the new technology. You know where the market is going eventually, but for sure you don't want to disrupt your current revenue stream until the new technology is really ready to replace the old one. For many years, basically Nikon and Canon split up the "professional" market between each other. They already had this position with analog SLRs, and continued after the transition to digital. The reason is a mix of having very good cameras, a large lens setup, especially considering the more exotic/expensive lenses mostly used by professionals and most importantly, with the service organizations. At each olympics, they would have large service centers on-site, for repair and exchange. And also outside of these events, they have services networks which enable a professional to get the equipment serviced/exchanged with loaners in minimal time, which is a very obvious benefit. Which basically prevented other brands to make a huge inroads in the professional markets. So their profits were driven by the established systems. They were milking this cash cow and consequently were late to the mirrorless game. Their recent offerings are nice, especially Canon has some very interesting lenses for their new mirrorless system, but even for those companies it takes a whole lot of time to have a remotely complete lens offering. It might also be worth while to look beyond the 35mm format. In 2013 Olympus brought the OMD E-M1 to the market, which was possibly the first mirrorless camera, not only matching but in a few aspecs exceeding the performance of comparable DSLRs. This shows, how much Canon and Nikon are lagging behind.