When Kodak and Polaroid went to war
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When Kodak and Polaroid went to war
1–10 of 43 posts
Re: When Kodak and Polaroid went to war
#2Incredibly 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-ca...
Re: When Kodak and Polaroid went to war
#3Why 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?
Re: When Kodak and Polaroid went to war
#4Why 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?
The history given seemed consistent with the systems he advocated being just better designs, functionally. Maybe he cared the most about that?
Re: When Kodak and Polaroid went to war
#5Kodak'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.
Re: When Kodak and Polaroid went to war
#6Kodak'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…
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.
Re: When Kodak and Polaroid went to war
#7Kodak'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…
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…
Instead they transitioned to outsourced IT management or something to that effect I think?
Re: When Kodak and Polaroid went to war
#8Kodak'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…
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…
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.
Re: When Kodak and Polaroid went to war
#9Kodak'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…
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…
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.
Re: When Kodak and Polaroid went to war
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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. K…
But they did invest in digitals, heavily. There just wasn't enough there to power the huge ship that had been driven by film. Even if they controlled the entire digitals market it wouldn't compare to the previous film market. Perhaps chemicals could have been a saving grace, but I believe Fujifilm had a sufficiently cushioned blow due to the Xerox subsidiary and the more favorable Japanese Business environment. In contrast to Kodak, Fujifilm didn't suffer a significant reduction in government revenue.