Economist: The Last Kodak Moment?

<p><a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21542796">A wonderful article about Kodak, its failings and how Fuji did better.</a><br>

Some really interesting things:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Kodak also failed to read emerging markets correctly. It hoped that the new Chinese middle class would buy lots of film. They did for a short while, but then decided that digital cameras were cooler. Many leap-frogged from no camera straight to a digital one.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>And I was thinking about the "Kodak Inside" as were others and this part puts a damper on that:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Could Kodak have avoided its current misfortunes? Some say it could have become the equivalent of “Intel Inside” for the smartphone camera—a brand that consumers trust. But Canon and Sony were better placed to achieve that, given their superior intellectual property, and neither has succeeded in doing so.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>I'm verklempt - talk amongst yourselves...</p>

<p>The first non BS I have seen in a while. </p>

<p>No surprise to see thoughtful writing from The Economist. They do have a very free-market view of things, in the English Conservative Party way.<br>

I think they miss another weakness of Kodak, which is selling to the bottom of the market. They were resolute in underestimating the sophistication of their customers. Maybe that was appropriate before 1960. But it slowly but surely came to be wrong point of view in the last 50 years.<br>

They invented a bunch of dismal film formats (126, 110, Disc, and APS) to solve the "customer is too stupid to load the camera" problem. The Japanese designed smart cameras that auto-loaded 135 film. Most Kodak cameras had pretty awful lenses, only a few for rich folks had good lenses.<br>

They made digital cameras with "docking stations", assuming their customers were too unsophisticated to plug in a USB cable, or pull out the memory card and plug it into the slot in their computer or printer.</p>

One point the article makes is that Kodak attempted to go straight ahead, from a film leader to a digital leader, whereas

Fuji went sideways, from film to using similar chemical technology in cosmetics. Not the whole story, of course, but an

indication of how they differed in their reaction to a seismic ahift.

 

Not mentioned in the article is Fuji's recent success with enthsuiast cameras, probably because the contribution to revenue

from them is too small to matter to the overall success or failure of the company as a whole.

<p>"Another reason why Kodak was slow to change was that its executives 'suffered from a mentality of perfect products, rather than the high-tech mindset of make it, launch it, fix it,' says Rosabeth Moss Kanter of Harvard Business School, who has advised the firm." (Quotation from the Economist). Remember Ektachrome Elite/Lumiere/Panther of 1993? This film suffered even more from poor processing than Velvia and the Velvia-derived Provia 100 (which just didn't tolerate Kodak chemistry well enough.) The initial version from 1993 was replaced only two years later with Elite II.</p>

<p>verkempt, verklemmt, mach's nichts. Mir auch.</p>

<p>I would not say that Kodak incorrectly thought consumers were not proficient about photog. Before I took up photog, I did have a APS point and shoot, while many of my friends did have a 35mm point and shoot they found them bulky and on the heavy side. They also thought APS produced better images than 35mm film. At the time during an event, there was a professional photographer contracted, he said that he had to load some film, he was using a 35mm SLR. A friend of mine said lightheartedly that he had a spare roll of 35mm film but not sure if his camera could take it. So yeah ... many people are just not knowledgeable enough. However Kodak maybe could of spent money more wisely than going to diff formats - yeah..</p>

<p>The digital dock cameras, Kodak wasn't the only manufacturer to do that. And I know that some pharmacies where I am, when you went for your passport photographs that's what they use.</p>

<p>I think Kodak is similar to 3Com where network cards became bundled with motherboards. It's inevitable. Likewise how many clothing, footwear companies have shifted to Asia. I recall that in the past many toys were made in Hong Kong...</p>

<p>For me personally, I just shot the consumer print film but got into slides later simply b/c you could see the dang thing and not be on the mercy of the lab. I tried Kodachrome. But I think with my generation, they may found Kodachrome not punchy enough for their taste. And Velvia was quite unique. But above all digital, film is free for most people out there, it's a no brainer and I'm saying this when I do like the challenge of slide film photog. For most out there, it is a no brainer, me and the few are the exceptions. Over where I am, a roll of any slide film 35mm cost us maybe $25US each, processing is like $20US or $7US if we need mounting. So for me, I import my film and export them for development.</p>

<p>All I think is that if you focus on photog, it's all your eggs in one basket. Sure they could make sensors but many others could too.... With digital, less film business means changes.</p>

<p>we all die at some point sooner or later.</p>

Hate to see kodak go... But more biz

for Ilford, Fuji & FOMA.

<p>The NY Times posted <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/nyregion/despite-long-slide-by-kodak-rochester-avoids-decay.html?ref=general&src=me&pagewanted=all">a good article</a> on Kodak today. I am very sad to see what is happening to The Great Yellow Father, but film is essentially a dead format, so hey, what can we do?</p>

<p>I should have said "film is essentially a dead format - for a company like Kodak." I didn't mean to sound like film is dead, etc. But for pros, or a large company like Kodak, it is impossible to make a profit on film sales anymore. For fine art photography, and large format, film still reigns supreme. If Kodak stops making film, Fuji won't be far behind. But there are still quite a lot of smaller companies that will continue to produce film for years to come.</p>

<p>Yes a good article. The news wires keeps writing cliches about how it "failed to adapt to digital" or "got caught offguard by digitial revolution", which is untrue and the article describes the real reasons. </p>

<p>John's comments are correct as well. Kodak made only crappy cameras, such as the Instamatic. There was no way to go up-market with Kodak.</p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>Kodak made only crappy cameras, such as the Instamatic. There was no way to go up-market with Kodak.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Really, you think?<br>

I can't agree. From the 19th c on, Kodak made lots of fine cameras, many of them in Kodak factories in Germany, for example. They were innovators in digital too, as their efforts to get others to pay them for use of their patented ideas show.</p>

<p>As a whole, I have to agree that Kodak (at least) focused on the bottom of the market for film cameras. They tended to change their tune a bit with APS but was otherwise consistent through much of their line since WW2.</p>

<p>With digital, however, went a lot of R&D. I had a 1.2 mp camera that made excellent prints up to 8x10.<br>

<img src="http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1093/1348750580_e97caaba97_d.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>I thought their digitals were sleepers. With not many "buttons" but real fancy firmware producing excellent images. I guess these "sleepers" didn't get taken seriously.</p>