I see it as an inevitable and logical result of convergence, and the sort of thing that happens when product generations become reiterative and stale. It's already happening in the P&S market; nothing but a slew of "also-rans" with the occasional gimmick thrown in (like Nikon's little camera with a projector built it; novel, sure, and got lots of free press, but it's still just an odd thing one can, but probably won't, get). Furthermore, look at the technical structure of a camera: Behind the image sensor and the actual "camera" structures (shutter, lens mount, filters, etc.) you have, essentially - processor, local storage, bulk storage. Add an ARM design to the image processor (which only gets cheaper to do as manufacturing tech gets more sophisticated) and some WiFi (also becoming more involved with the photography process as the whole shebang gets more connected; see the tricks the iPhone is renown for) and you essentially have a solid Android platform.
Or something like it, at the very least. I don't know exactly how much it would cost to add that functionality, but you have to figure it's something that can be absorbed into the price of several hundreds to several thousands of dollars worth of device. As for why? I dunno, why do they put out different colors of the same camera? Why do they all boast how many different stupid "scene modes" they have? Why did they tout video capabilities that were obviously hackneyed and sloppy implementations? I expect that someone - probably Olympus or Panasonic, but almost certainly coming from the mirrorless sector - will start the reaction with a very interconnected camera, the sort of thing that Thom Hogan is always going on about. The sort of camera that's hugely flexible and comes with more of an "operating system" than a "menu". It'll have WiFi, maybe if the marketing guys had a real bender the night before they'll throw in a full-on USB port so's you can plug in one of those 3/4G internet doohickies. You'll have crazy options galore with in-camera processing, nowhere near as robust as a proper desktop suite but certainly enough to justify zapping straight to your website, Facebook, Flickr, or whatever crap you want, right as you're shooting it. Or just connected natively with your laptop or tablet (and drive Eye-Fi out of the business in the process).
Anyway, IF somebody gets a camera out with that level of flexibility, interconnectivity, and in-camera customizability... and IF they get it right enough that it creates enough of a splash... why, then everyone will want to get in on it, too. And naturally they'll want to one-up each other. And then some junior exec (soon to be corporate VP) smacks his forehead and says, "Guys! Ever hear of this Google thing?!?"
That's my wild prognostication and I'm sticking to it.