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I suppose this is meant to be presented like a record-label-who-turned-down-the-beatles kind of story, but I think they did the right thing. In 1975, digital ca

I suppose this is meant to be presented like a record-label-who-turned-down-the-beatles kind of story, but I think they did the right thing. In 1975, digital cameras would not have succeeded like they eventually did. The timing was completely off and if they had started to pursue that, they would have been losing lots of money for many years.

joezydeco 11y ago
Exactly right. Kodak did launch the first digital consumer camera when they felt the time was right... and they partnered with Apple Computer to make it happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_QuickTake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_QuickTake That was 1994, and it turned out the market still wasn't ready for it.
transfire 11y ago
Or they could have made a fortune and still be in business today. No, Kodak was foolishly trying to preserve their paper film empire for far too long.
prof_hobart 11y ago
In 1975, you are correct. But the key mistake wasn't in 1975. It was in the 2000s, as the digital market started to pick up. Unfortunately, the attitude of "Every digital camera that was sold took away from a film camera and we knew how much money we made on film" is all too common in companies that dominate a given market - people pretending that as long as they don't cannibalize their current products then no one else will either. There's a brilliant 60s article from Harvard Business Review, called "Marketing Myopia" that talked about this effect even back then.
- GFischer 11y ago
  Also known as the "Innovator's Dilemma" more recently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma Heck, Kodak is one of Christensen's main examples.
jakobegger 11y ago
If you read to the end of the article, they mention that Kodak had a fully working DSLR in 1989, similar to todays DSLRs. So they did the right thing in 1975 by working on a digital camera, but they did the wrong thing in the 90ies by not selling it once they had it.

joezydeco 11y ago

Exactly right. Kodak did launch the first digital consumer camera when they felt the time was right... and they partnered with Apple Computer to make it happen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_QuickTake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_QuickTake That was 1994, and it turned out the market still wasn't ready for it.

transfire 11y ago

Or they could have made a fortune and still be in business today. No, Kodak was foolishly trying to preserve their paper film empire for far too long.

prof_hobart 11y ago

In 1975, you are correct. But the key mistake wasn't in 1975. It was in the 2000s, as the digital market started to pick up. Unfortunately, the attitude of "Every digital camera that was sold took away from a film camera and we knew how much money we made on film" is all too common in companies that dominate a given market - people pretending that as long as they don't cannibalize their current products then no one else will either. There's a brilliant 60s article from Harvard Business Review, called "Marketing Myopia" that talked about this effect even back then.

GFischer 11y ago
Also known as the "Innovator's Dilemma" more recently: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma Heck, Kodak is one of Christensen's main examples.

jakobegger 11y ago

If you read to the end of the article, they mention that Kodak had a fully working DSLR in 1989, similar to todays DSLRs. So they did the right thing in 1975 by working on a digital camera, but they did the wrong thing in the 90ies by not selling it once they had it.