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Digital photography is one of those things where terms like "disruptive" grossly understates the reality. (More like "destroyer".) 35MM film cost $5 a roll and

by flomo 15y ago

Digital photography is one of those things where terms like "disruptive" grossly understates the reality. (More like "destroyer".) 35MM film cost $5 a roll and prints were $10 to $50 a roll (including the bad ones). Meanwhile, digital photography was free to shoot, and a couple bucks to print per (if you cared). I can't think of any scenario where a company would give up on that magnitude of revenue for some small percentage of IP licensing on the "next big thing". It's easy to attack Kodak in the abstract sense, but I have yet to see an analysis that shows a clear path out of this conundrum. If anything, I'm sympathetic to the arguments that Kodak did not support professional film markets longer than they did.

6ren 15y ago
"Disrupt" is used here in its technical sense, as coined by Clayton Christensen in "The Innovator's Dilemma". That book is advice to incumbents, such as Kodak.
justincormack 15y ago
Maybe it is the replacenent of printed photos with screen viewing that was as disruptive as the digital camera. Since 2000 pretty much everyone has a portable display, laptop or phone, that can display photos. Before then that wasn't the case, and people still thought printing digital photos was going to be a viable business.
andrewvc 15y ago
Kodak needed to shift from film and printing accessories to hardware / software manufacture. Kodak never really managed that transition, they should have been competing with Canon, Nikon, and Adobe. They had the resources to give it a shot, but they never took a serious one.
yohui 15y ago
As icegreentea noted elsewhere in the comments, The Economist recently compared Kodak to Fujifilm, which has done rather better at transitioning from film. http://www.economist.com/node/21542796 http://www.economist.com/node/21542796 http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/01/how-fujifilm-survived http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/01/how-fujifi...
- flomo 15y ago
  It should be noted that Fuji was more on the $5 film roll side and less on the $30 processing, so they had less to lose. Kodak supplied chemicals and paper to the entire industry.

by flomo 15y ago

6ren 15y ago

"Disrupt" is used here in its technical sense, as coined by Clayton Christensen in "The Innovator's Dilemma". That book is advice to incumbents, such as Kodak.

justincormack 15y ago

Maybe it is the replacenent of printed photos with screen viewing that was as disruptive as the digital camera. Since 2000 pretty much everyone has a portable display, laptop or phone, that can display photos. Before then that wasn't the case, and people still thought printing digital photos was going to be a viable business.

andrewvc 15y ago

Kodak needed to shift from film and printing accessories to hardware / software manufacture. Kodak never really managed that transition, they should have been competing with Canon, Nikon, and Adobe. They had the resources to give it a shot, but they never took a serious one.

yohui 15y ago

As icegreentea noted elsewhere in the comments, The Economist recently compared Kodak to Fujifilm, which has done rather better at transitioning from film. http://www.economist.com/node/21542796 http://www.economist.com/node/21542796 http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/01/how-fujifilm-survived http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/01/how-fujifi...

flomo 15y ago
It should be noted that Fuji was more on the $5 film roll side and less on the $30 processing, so they had less to lose. Kodak supplied chemicals and paper to the entire industry.