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When Kodak and Polaroid went to war

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Re: When Kodak and Polaroid went to war

#21

Post by surfingdino »

fellowniusmonk wrote: post #5

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…

Kodak had a massive investment in analogue photography and failed to see the future in a non-binary way where both film and digital photography could coexist. Film photography is making a modest comeback, but there are no new cameras being made apart from Leica M6 and the upcoming half-frame Pentax compact film camera.

Re: When Kodak and Polaroid went to war

#22

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

fellowniusmonk wrote: post #5

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…

They did respond. EasyShare was the number one consumer camera system before the novelty of docking stations wore off. Their problem is they never cultivated a reputation as a quality camera manufacturer and were dead once Nikon was ready to go digital on its own. With no professional grade product line they had nothing to create the impression of a superior brand image.

Re: When Kodak and Polaroid went to war

#23

Post by jccalhoun »

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-compens...

That's when I learned class action lawsuits only benefit the lawyers.

Re: When Kodak and Polaroid went to war

#24

Post by nradov »

hattmall wrote: post #6
fellowniusmonk wrote: post #5

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…

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…

There is a profitable business in supplying camera sensors, lenses, and other parts to phone manufacturers. You don't have to invent the entire device.

Re: When Kodak and Polaroid went to war

#25

Post by woleium »

treflop wrote: post #11
hattmall wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

I think the big problem was that digital technology just wasn’t good yet to bother making a digital camera. It’s not just the sensor… it’s also storage and processing and it took a few decades before digital cameras were good. Investing in digital cameras was going to require many years of R&D with little payback. Someone like Sony could do it because they have all these other business sectors to subsidize developmen…

They also had a nuclear reactor in a basement. I have no idea when that was commissioned or what research they were doing with it

https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/local/2016/08/18/...

Re: When Kodak and Polaroid went to war

#26

Post by ssl-3 »

hattmall wrote: post #6
fellowniusmonk wrote: post #5

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…

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…

Before their downfall, Sears had a better website than Amazon for buying hard goods.

When Amazon was still focused on selling books, Sears had a huge array of non-book stuff that could be bought and shipped to their store for free, or delivered anywhere at a fairly low cost. I bought all kinds of stuff that way, at a time when buying anything online still seemed kind of novel.

For a very long time the Sears Parts website was the foremost place to find appliance parts and documentation online.

Sears was even one of the founders of Prodigy, years before Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the Word Wide Web.

FFS, they had a rich history of taking orders and delivering products that started over a century ago.

So, one might ask: If the old trope of "they didn't understand teh Intarwebs, herp herp" is false, then what was it that brought ruin to Sears a little bit quicker than some of their fellow mall anchor peers?

And that answer is simple: Standard corporate raider tactics.

https://janweirlaw.medium.com/how-hedge-funds-profit-from-ba...

Re: When Kodak and Polaroid went to war

#28

Post by actionfromafar »

nradov wrote: post #24
hattmall wrote: post #6

Earlier 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…

There is a profitable business in supplying camera sensors, lenses, and other parts to phone manufacturers. You don't have to invent the entire device.

There is, now. Also the margins are thin and the competition is fierce.

Re: When Kodak and Polaroid went to war

#29

Post by jzent »

hattmall wrote: post #6
fellowniusmonk wrote: post #5

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…

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…

Likewise with Blockbuster. They started a DVD mail-order service and streaming service to compete with Netflix, but it was too little too late.

Re: When Kodak and Polaroid went to war

#30

Post by jzent »

ssl-3 wrote: post #26
hattmall wrote: post #6

Earlier 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…

Before their downfall, Sears had a better website than Amazon for buying hard goods. When Amazon was still focused on selling books, Sears had a huge array of non-book stuff that could be bought and shipped to their store for free, or delivered anywhere at a fairly low cost. I bought all kinds of stuff that way, at a time when buying anything online still seemed kind of novel. For a very long time the Sears Parts web…

I think the issue with Sears is they had a ton of large brick-mortar-stores (often the "anchors" at malls, which is another nearly dead industry with the last indoor mall built in the US in 2006). Remember the fear of Wal-Mart killing main street in the late 90s into the 2000s? Wal-Mart came in and killed the competition, which included Sears. Then Amazaon annihilated Sears further and took a huge dent in Wal-Mart. Sears had no choice but to implode. I imagine major horse and carriage companies suffered a similar fate with the invention of the automobile.
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