5 ms·

When Kodak and Polaroid went to war

116 points by sblank 2y ago

actionfromafar 2y ago
Incredibly well researched and annotated. A tidbit that struck me was that not only did Kodak produce the first digital camera in 1975¹, they had a product in the form of a digital spy satellite in 1976. 1: https://petapixel.com/2010/08/05/the-worlds-first-digital-camera-by-kodak-and-steve-sasson/ https://petapixel.com/2010/08/05/the-worlds-first-digital-ca...
indigodaddy 2y ago
Why would Land have been such a fierce advocate against the government contracts benefiting Kodak? Was he just trying to get some sort of overall business edge on Kodak even though Polaroid had no real skin in the game WRT the govt contracts? He had to know that Kodak would retaliate in some manner yes? I suppose he severely underestimated the potential backlash to his actions?
- abecedarius 2y ago
  The history given seemed consistent with the systems he advocated being just better designs, functionally. Maybe he cared the most about that?
  - Animats 2y ago
    Probably realized the USAF's Manned Orbiting Laboratory as a surveillance station wasn't going to work very well. Taking film pictures in orbit, having astronauts look them over and picking the good parts, then scanning the good parts with a slow scanner was a marginal idea. Transmitting all the data to the ground was much more useful. There was a USAF thing for "we must control the high ground" in the 1960s and 1970s. The USAF had a space school during the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo years. The USAF wanted manned fighter aircraft that could reach low orbit, and proposed programs for decade after decade. It's a USAF thing. If you've had any involvement with the USAF, you know that there are pilots, and there's everybody else. The pilots are in charge. (Among the pilots, there are fighter pilots, and there's everybody else.)
- KerrAvon 2y ago
  Land famously wasn’t very politically savvy, nor did he want to be. He was simply being honest in his reasoning, by his lights.
fellowniusmonk 2y ago
Kodak's failure to respond to the threat of digital photography has always been a classic example of an innovators dilemma fail... but after reading this I realize it was far worse than I thought. Having been given 30-40 years of financial data on the effect of digital photography squeezing them out of one lucrative sector they wasted all that unique foreknowledge on ignoring digital photography in the consumer space as well.
- hattmall 2y ago
  It's not that they didn't respond. They had loads of digital printers, cameras, digital picture frames, photo papers. They even had fairly innovative stuff, the Kodak Easyshare Frame's fetched a good price for a while. The first frames that you could email a picture too. They even innovated on SmartTV boxes, one of the first items you could watch Youtube on your TV with the "Kodak Home Theatre HD Player" It's not at all the same as like sears failing to migrate to online shopping. Kodak was in a situation where there industry just pretty much died. The only real way they could have pivoted would have basically been to become Apple and invent the Iphone first.
  - indigodaddy 2y ago
    Instead they transitioned to outsourced IT management or something to that effect I think?
  - Finnucane 2y ago
    And in addition, the Kodak DCS was the first digital SLR. (Basically a Nikon with a digital sensor strapped on). But, it was insanely expensive, adopted for limited applications. It is true that Kodak lost an opportunity to be a 'first mover' in consumer digital cameras. Would it have made much difference in the long run? probably not.
  - treflop 2y ago
    Kodak was probably a chemical company first with a depth of chemical knowledge (a bulk of the development of photography was the design of film chemicals). Fujifilm, Kodak’s later main competitor, was in the same boat and they just leaned into chemicals more. Fujifilm survived and then went back to photography and now makes instant photography film again. They also make digital cameras that have a decent following. Kodak could have probably done the same. They were probably right to to not invest in digital, but they were probably wrong to not invest in chemicals, their actual main strength.
Animats 2y ago
$4.4 billion per Keyhole satellite. Comparable to an aircraft carrier. I wonder how they spent that much.
DerCommodore 2y ago
[flagged]
jccalhoun 2y ago
When I was a kid my parents had one of the Kodak instant cameras. I remember when Polaroid sued them out of existence and as part of a class action lawsuit my parents got a settlement. It was some coupons for Kodak brand batteries and one specific model of film camera we could never find in stock before it expired. https://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/17/business/kodak-to-compensate-instant-camera-owners.html https://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/17/business/kodak-to-compens... That's when I learned class action lawsuits only benefit the lawyers.
jzent 2y ago
The OG East Coast vs (Mid)West Coast battle.
- jrjarrett 2y ago
  Huh? Kodak was (is? meh.) in Rochester NY; Polaroid was in Cambridge, MA. That’s as about as east coast as you can get.
robertclaus 2y ago
Super interesting that even a heavily consumer facing company like Kodak could employ thousands of people on large scale government projects. It definitely speaks to the scale of some of these projects.

116 points by sblank 2y ago

Incredibly well researched and annotated. A tidbit that struck me was that not only did Kodak produce the first digital camera in 1975¹, they had a product in the form of a digital spy satellite in 1976. 1: https://petapixel.com/2010/08/05/the-worlds-first-digital-camera-by-kodak-and-steve-sasson/ https://petapixel.com/2010/08/05/the-worlds-first-digital-ca...

indigodaddy 2y ago

Why would Land have been such a fierce advocate against the government contracts benefiting Kodak? Was he just trying to get some sort of overall business edge on Kodak even though Polaroid had no real skin in the game WRT the govt contracts? He had to know that Kodak would retaliate in some manner yes? I suppose he severely underestimated the potential backlash to his actions?

abecedarius 2y ago
The history given seemed consistent with the systems he advocated being just better designs, functionally. Maybe he cared the most about that?
- Animats 2y ago
  Probably realized the USAF's Manned Orbiting Laboratory as a surveillance station wasn't going to work very well. Taking film pictures in orbit, having astronauts look them over and picking the good parts, then scanning the good parts with a slow scanner was a marginal idea. Transmitting all the data to the ground was much more useful. There was a USAF thing for "we must control the high ground" in the 1960s and 1970s. The USAF had a space school during the Mercury-Gemini-Apollo years. The USAF wanted manned fighter aircraft that could reach low orbit, and proposed programs for decade after decade. It's a USAF thing. If you've had any involvement with the USAF, you know that there are pilots, and there's everybody else. The pilots are in charge. (Among the pilots, there are fighter pilots, and there's everybody else.)
KerrAvon 2y ago
Land famously wasn’t very politically savvy, nor did he want to be. He was simply being honest in his reasoning, by his lights.

fellowniusmonk 2y ago

Kodak's failure to respond to the threat of digital photography has always been a classic example of an innovators dilemma fail... but after reading this I realize it was far worse than I thought. Having been given 30-40 years of financial data on the effect of digital photography squeezing them out of one lucrative sector they wasted all that unique foreknowledge on ignoring digital photography in the consumer space as well.

hattmall 2y ago
It's not that they didn't respond. They had loads of digital printers, cameras, digital picture frames, photo papers. They even had fairly innovative stuff, the Kodak Easyshare Frame's fetched a good price for a while. The first frames that you could email a picture too. They even innovated on SmartTV boxes, one of the first items you could watch Youtube on your TV with the "Kodak Home Theatre HD Player" It's not at all the same as like sears failing to migrate to online shopping. Kodak was in a situation where there industry just pretty much died. The only real way they could have pivoted would have basically been to become Apple and invent the Iphone first.
- indigodaddy 2y ago
  Instead they transitioned to outsourced IT management or something to that effect I think?
- Finnucane 2y ago
  And in addition, the Kodak DCS was the first digital SLR. (Basically a Nikon with a digital sensor strapped on). But, it was insanely expensive, adopted for limited applications. It is true that Kodak lost an opportunity to be a 'first mover' in consumer digital cameras. Would it have made much difference in the long run? probably not.
- treflop 2y ago
  Kodak was probably a chemical company first with a depth of chemical knowledge (a bulk of the development of photography was the design of film chemicals). Fujifilm, Kodak’s later main competitor, was in the same boat and they just leaned into chemicals more. Fujifilm survived and then went back to photography and now makes instant photography film again. They also make digital cameras that have a decent following. Kodak could have probably done the same. They were probably right to to not invest in digital, but they were probably wrong to not invest in chemicals, their actual main strength.

Animats 2y ago

$4.4 billion per Keyhole satellite. Comparable to an aircraft carrier. I wonder how they spent that much.

DerCommodore 2y ago

[flagged]

jccalhoun 2y ago

When I was a kid my parents had one of the Kodak instant cameras. I remember when Polaroid sued them out of existence and as part of a class action lawsuit my parents got a settlement. It was some coupons for Kodak brand batteries and one specific model of film camera we could never find in stock before it expired. https://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/17/business/kodak-to-compensate-instant-camera-owners.html https://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/17/business/kodak-to-compens... That's when I learned class action lawsuits only benefit the lawyers.

jzent 2y ago

The OG East Coast vs (Mid)West Coast battle.

jrjarrett 2y ago
Huh? Kodak was (is? meh.) in Rochester NY; Polaroid was in Cambridge, MA. That’s as about as east coast as you can get.

robertclaus 2y ago

Super interesting that even a heavily consumer facing company like Kodak could employ thousands of people on large scale government projects. It definitely speaks to the scale of some of these projects.