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I wonder how things could have gone differently for Kodak. Kodak invented the digital camera, so it's easy in retrospect to say they should have focused more on
by fvryan 15y ago
I wonder how things could have gone differently for Kodak. Kodak invented the digital camera, so it's easy in retrospect to say they should have focused more on digital technology. But film was printing cash and they would have had to anticipate so many changes. Photography behavior, photo sharing behavior, personal computing, and now mobile.
- eduardordm 15y agoThings are moving so fast that I wonder how long it will take for smartphones to kill those low/medium-end cameras. I have a cool small sony camera and I only take photos using my phone.
- fvryan 15y agoIt's already started.. Cisco shutting down Flip Mino for example after buying it $580M.
- moylan 15y ago2 of my first 3 digital cameras were kodak. a dc2300? a low end 2mp camera. and a palmpix attachment that connected to my then palm iiix and iiic. both were very good cameras and the lenses were better than any of the camera phones i had for a few years. the palmpix especailly for a vga res camera took surprisingly good pics. i never heard of them trying to put their tech into camera phones. their name and reputation would have helped shift a few phones. a quick check only turns up one model a motorola zn5. they're also sitting on impressive printing technology. there is still a market for mobile printing for embedded applications. i would love a a5-a6 printer that fitted in my bag to kick out a page every once in a bluemoon. it would be tragic to see kodak disappear from shops and be nothing but a brand in some larger company.
- ams6110 15y agoI would be surprised if their imaging business didn't survive in some fashion. Maybe spun off or sold off. Their stuff is quite good. Heh. Just did a quick search to check something and looks like this has already happend: http://www.kodak.com/ek/US/en/Image_Sensor_Solutions/Kodak_Image_Sensor_Solutions.htm http://www.kodak.com/ek/US/en/Image_Sensor_Solutions/Kodak_I... Edit: So this is fascinating. The one piece of their business where they had legitimately market-leading tech, they sell off. They must have felt that they couldn't escape the weight of the failure of all the old business lines.
- stan_rogers 15y agoThey were ahead of the game, but Dalsa picked up the high end of the market (Hasselblad and Leaf/PhaseOne) and Sony the low end (Nikon, Pentax -- and their own cameras, of course) over the past couple of years. It'll cost some money to leapfrog them, and if the company doesn't have financial room for an R&D-only business phase...
- diego 15y agoThey did see it coming, probably in the same way that the movie and music industries saw the inevitable future of digital downloads. Who knows what political battles must have been fought within that company. http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/10/business/kodak-sees-a-future-where-film-is-optional.html http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/10/business/kodak-sees-a-futu...
- gamble 15y agoI think it would have been hard to get around the fact that Kodak was based on selling consumables like film and paper that digital photography simply doesn't require. Even the point-and-shoot camera business is disappearing these days, or rather bifurcating into a business divided up between high-end DSLRs and electronics manufacturers supplying sensors to mobile phone manufacturers.
- joezydeco 15y agoKodak did do the QuickTake 100 and 150 with Apple...