my take on Kodak downfall

having worked there

consumer film was where the big money was

too often consumer systems were developed and then a professional system
was hacked out of it

as opposed to developing professional systems and watering them down for
consumer applications

would have taken some quick work too keep up with the consumer demand,
but Kodak was big enough to keep up with that I think

then there is the general USA/UN/WTO issue of fair trade versus free
trade allowing cheap imports from places with less consideration of
workers and environmentalism, etc.

but Kodak had plants in Mexico after NAFTA, so they should have been
able to invest that consumer film money better I think

--
Dale

In article , Dale
wrote:

having worked there

consumer film was where the big money was

the key is the word *was*.

although kodak pioneered digital photography, they completely failed to
manage the transition to digital and went bankrupt.

On 02/10/2014 07:42 AM, nospam wrote:
In article , Dale
wrote:

having worked there

consumer film was where the big money was

the key is the word *was*.

although kodak pioneered digital photography, they completely failed to
manage the transition to digital and went bankrupt.


it isn't too late for Kodak, it might make the investments in digital
across the imaging board, staarting with their focus on commercial and
prepress labs and going to other focuses

might be some hybrid stuff out their too, they could use/license
intellectual property

maybe even some analog stuff that they could use/license intellectual
property too

they might not be a propreitary closed system dealer in all areas, but
starting with open standards they might be an open systems player, and
eventually perhaps develop themselves into intellectual property for ne
propreitary systems

I think they should start with capture though, professional
cameras/lenses lighting, etc.

--
Dale

On Mon, 10 Feb 2014 00:28:28 -0500, Dale
wrote:

having worked there

consumer film was where the big money was

too often consumer systems were developed and then a professional system
was hacked out of it

as opposed to developing professional systems and watering them down for
consumer applications

would have taken some quick work too keep up with the consumer demand,
but Kodak was big enough to keep up with that I think

then there is the general USA/UN/WTO issue of fair trade versus free
trade allowing cheap imports from places with less consideration of
workers and environmentalism, etc.

but Kodak had plants in Mexico after NAFTA, so they should have been
able to invest that consumer film money better I think

There was a story going around about the Kodak CEO making a statement
about the digital threat: "how can we stop this digital thing?"

Or something like that. If true, well...

Kodak's management screwed the pooch. Some of the earliest digital
SLRs were Kodak conversions. Kodak sold the first full frame DSLR!
Granted, it wasn't great, but they had the tech and just let it die.
No excuses, this is a business school case study now.

In article ,
nospam wrote:
In article , Dale
wrote:

having worked there

consumer film was where the big money was

the key is the word *was*.

although kodak pioneered digital photography, they completely failed to
manage the transition to digital and went bankrupt.

The second mouse gets the cheese.

--
"Remember when teachers, public employees, Planned Parenthood, NPR and PBS
crashed the stock market, wiped out half of our 401Ks, took trillions in
TARP money, spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, gave themselves billions in
bonuses, and paid no taxes? Yeah, me neither."

On 02/10/2014 10:55 AM, Paul Ciszek wrote:
In article ,
nospam wrote:
In article , Dale
wrote:

having worked there

consumer film was where the big money was

the key is the word *was*.

although kodak pioneered digital photography, they completely failed to
manage the transition to digital and went bankrupt.

The second mouse gets the cheese.

Reminds me of working for Bell Labs. They invented the transistor, for
goodness sake. Yet they could not manufacture them very well. I got the
ones I needed when working there, from Philco, RCA, and Texas
Instruments. Raytheon made them too. Once I absolutely had to get a
Western Electric point contact transistor. A guy I knew at a nearby
military research and development site stole a bunch for me. Inside the
company, none were available.

Xerox PARC pretty much invented the first Apple computer but management
was afraid it would bring on the paperless society (remember that) and
they were in the paper-copying business, so they refused to go on with it.

Corporations have a lot to answer for.

--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ PGP-Key:166D840A 0C610C8B Registered Machine 1935521.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://linuxcounter.net
^^-^^ 12:30:01 up 5:25, 2 users, load average: 4.33, 4.48, 4.64

On 10/02/2014 14:04, Bowser wrote:
On Mon, 10 Feb 2014 00:28:28 -0500, Dale
wrote:

having worked there

consumer film was where the big money was

Which was surprising as anyone who tried Fuji film never went back!

too often consumer systems were developed and then a professional system
was hacked out of it

Kodak astronomical emulsions and plates were specialist products but
largely out evolved by digital imaging and ever more sensitive CCDs.

as opposed to developing professional systems and watering them down for
consumer applications

would have taken some quick work too keep up with the consumer demand,
but Kodak was big enough to keep up with that I think

then there is the general USA/UN/WTO issue of fair trade versus free
trade allowing cheap imports from places with less consideration of
workers and environmentalism, etc.

but Kodak had plants in Mexico after NAFTA, so they should have been
able to invest that consumer film money better I think

There was a story going around about the Kodak CEO making a statement
about the digital threat: "how can we stop this digital thing?"

Or something like that. If true, well...

Kodak's management screwed the pooch. Some of the earliest digital
SLRs were Kodak conversions. Kodak sold the first full frame DSLR!

They had too many MBAs.

Granted, it wasn't great, but they had the tech and just let it die.
No excuses, this is a business school case study now.

The core patent for consumer single shot colour was by Kodak employee
Bryce Bayer and still bears his name. Obituary shows how far advanced
Kodak was along the digital imaging line. My first very early digital
camera was a Kodak DC-120 which was useful for scientific work as you
could access the raw Bayer array. Note the date of the patent 1976!!!
(They had a phenomenal technical lead at one point)

http://www.imaging-resource.com/news...meras-has-died

Even then they demonstrated a tremendous facility for shooting their
foot by releasing a similarly named DC-210 shortly afterwards.

My dealer was convinced he'd be stuck with the earlier and in some ways
better DC-120 so I got it at a knock down price. It was quite a cool
looking thing rather like a StarTrek tricorder and hammered its
batteries drawing nearly 2A out of a set of 4x AAs worst case.

But it was a damn good camera and served me well as backup and to do
various web photos even with its ~1Mpixel limitations.

A bit like the later Kodak launch confusing professional grade PhotoCD
scanning .PCD with the newer poxy consumer grade PictureCD with the same
acronym. You only got caught out once and went and bought your own
scanner. Shame as PhotoCD was a very good service until they ruined it,
but you could not afford to take the chance of getting a disk with toy
low quality consumer grade scans half the time.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

In article , Dale
wrote:

having worked there

consumer film was where the big money was

the key is the word *was*.

although kodak pioneered digital photography, they completely failed to
manage the transition to digital and went bankrupt.

it isn't too late for Kodak, it might make the investments in digital
across the imaging board, staarting with their focus on commercial and
prepress labs and going to other focuses

it's too late for kodak.

might be some hybrid stuff out their too, they could use/license
intellectual property

maybe even some analog stuff that they could use/license intellectual
property too

that's about all they have now. they should sell their patents to
someone and call it a day.

they might not be a propreitary closed system dealer in all areas, but
starting with open standards they might be an open systems player, and
eventually perhaps develop themselves into intellectual property for ne
propreitary systems

I think they should start with capture though, professional
cameras/lenses lighting, etc.

what could they possibly do in that space that existing players haven't
done? nothing.

kodak never made cameras that were any good, although some were quite
popular such as the instamatic.

the kodak dslr hybrids were retrofitted canon/nikon cameras.

In article , Bowser
wrote:

There was a story going around about the Kodak CEO making a statement
about the digital threat: "how can we stop this digital thing?"

Or something like that. If true, well...

Kodak's management screwed the pooch. Some of the earliest digital
SLRs were Kodak conversions. Kodak sold the first full frame DSLR!
Granted, it wasn't great, but they had the tech and just let it die.
No excuses, this is a business school case study now.

yep. kodak pioneered digital photography and knew it one day would
replace film, but management didn't want to do anything to impact the
revenue from film. very stupid.

In article , Martin Brown
wrote:

A bit like the later Kodak launch confusing professional grade PhotoCD
scanning .PCD with the newer poxy consumer grade PictureCD with the same
acronym. You only got caught out once and went and bought your own
scanner. Shame as PhotoCD was a very good service until they ruined it,
but you could not afford to take the chance of getting a disk with toy
low quality consumer grade scans half the time.

photocd was doomed from the start. it was proprietary and kodak was
restrictive on licensing it. few companies supported it and never
gained traction. plus, nobody wanted to buy a special player to watch
photos on a tv.