The DXO ONE - has a great company lost their mind?

DXO is well respected for their lens analysis tools and their excellent DXO Optics post-processing software.  So I was quite interested when I started getting seed emails saying the DXO was going to change the face of photography.  Was it some new amazing software?  A new way to process RAW images?  A new way to correct for lens issues?  Umm.  No.  It's a camera that you stick to your smartphone...

The groundbreaking (?) DXO One camera

I work not to let my childhood lumber town creative metaphors out on this site but seriously, WTF?  Sony did that clip on camera for smartphones last year and it was such a huge success that even when they were on demo not chained to anything, no one would steal them.  And in fairness, Sony knows a thing or hundred about making a solid point and shoot.  And that's what these things are.

Oh the folks at DXO say that to leverage the DXO ONE you need to have the control app on your smartphone so you can use it's display as the viewfinder and control all your settings from their app.  I am absolutely sure that this is 100% true.  I'm also pretty darn sure that the number of folks who will swarm up to drop $599 for a camera that needs to attach to a smartphone to be even vaguely usable will be, well a swarm will not be the right noun to describe it.  <INSERT LOOP OF CRICKETS CHIRPING HERE>

The folks at DP Review like it a lot.  There's a lot to like about the tech.  It's the same BSI sensor as in Sony's kick butt RX100 III.  The lens is optically fast at f:/1.8 and has the look of a 32mm on a full frame.  The camera incorporates the incredible smarts that go into DXO Optics Pro software.  The camera is tiny.  But there's no flash, not that it would be good in something so tiny, and you do need to connect it to your iOS device to really take control of things.  And, it's $599

Yes the engineering is marvellous.  Yes the DXO folks are incredibly bright.  And I just don't see this thing getting any serious traction at all.  I will be just fine to be proven wrong, but I thought Sony did a good job on their stick it to the smartphone product and was right about that one because good tech wasn't enough to get market penetration then and I don't see anything having changed.

My biggest concern is what great software got sidelined while time and money went into this product?  I'm not saying that a company should not evolve, but evolve, don't regress into a market that doesn't exist, and doesn't have a gap needing filling.  

Man, I hope I am wrong about this.