31–40 of 43 posts
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'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…
The financial system and the economic system encourages rolling the dice on (e.g) Tesla, but not doing the same on (e.g.) Ford. Furthermore, the downside of tying (executive) compensation to results is it "inspires" short term thinking, short term vision and new Coke results.
Sure there are a handful of exceptions and outliers (e.g., Apple) but isn't there always? Is it really a dilemma when the system is strongly wired to keep you on a narrow path?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. S…
https://prospect.org/economy/sears-gutted-ceo/ https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/16/investing/retail-sears-privat...
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?
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…
Toyota ignoring electric cars will be looked back on the same way
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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. S…
You’d might think that — seems obvious, right? — but you’d be wrong! Private equity killed Sears. https://prospect.org/economy/sears-gutted-ceo/ https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/16/investing/retail-sears-privat...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Kodak did invest heavily into chemicals, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Chemical_Company
Kodak management's mistake was laser-focusing on consumer imaging, and spinning off all of its other businesses like chemical, medical, office systems, etc. Consumer imaging was the one thing that dropped to zero in value as it became a commodity, and Fujifilm survived through those other businesses.
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…
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…
It's actually funny how Fujifilm's single largest generator of revenue is again analog film
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…
Toyota ignoring electric cars will be looked back on the same way
Car would have cost twice as much and that allows me to easily buy 10 years of fuel and running costs let alone accounting for depreciation. Charging standards and user experience needs to be better still.
Hoping in 5 years or so when my other car is ready to be replaced that the decision goes the other way, but we'll see. For now it's a no go.
I expect that Toyota will have products ready when the time is right.