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Polaroid Can't Compete with Digital Cameras
mobydobius was among several who noted that poloroid can't keep up in the era of digital cameras. They filed for chapter 11, and have a billion dollars of debt. This deal gets them a bit of cash, but none of this seems surprising considering the cost of their instant film. In just a few short years, digital cameras knocked 'em down. There's a lesson here, but I think it's something like "Don't eat the Yellow Snow".
They do, expensive ones. Polaroid has been on the ropes for a while now. Articles examining this have pinned it on a failure to innovate.
No major changes in their models, and no improvements in prices.
Main moral to gain from this is don't sit back and relax just because you (were) on top...
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It looks like a company's distribution model is outmoded! Computers are making perfect digital copies of photographs easy to distribute over the internet. We need to ban these so called "digital cameras" (more like digital crowbars if you ask us) before even one more dollar of profits has to die! We must outlaw all disruptive technology!
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Actually, if you read yesterday's nytimes article, the company had been headed down at least since 1988, (before digital cameras) when they were first in debt. Their demise is attributed not just to a failure to keep up with digital, but to a string of bad business decisions.
Besides, even before digital cameras they had to compete against disposables and the general drop in camera prices and features.
Polaroid made some of the best advances in providing instant photos, but that was back during their golden years. Digital cameras entered the market a few years ago, also providing instant photos, and Polaroid acted like they werent there.
Digital beat Polaroid in the fact that Polaroid's photos never really improved over the years. The cameras lacked good zoom lenses, quality never improved, lighting was an issue, each photo was an expensive $1/print, not to mention sheer size of the cameras meant it was tough to carry around.
Digital, OTOH, has zoom, high quality photos, adjusts for lighting problems, and have hardly any cost per photo.
IMO, Polaroid's downfall was their failure to further develop their camera to compete with the modern world. Their only major advancement was in providing fancy party borders to photos.
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They have always been a one-trick pony. Instant cameras and film were it for them, and everything else was just a little sideline.
Many moons ago Polaroid sued the pants off of Kodak for patent infringement, winning back exclusive rights to "instant" film and cameras as well as a good chunk of cash.
Their corporate culture didn't allow them to recognize that the "instant" film market, their baby, had reached the end of its lifespan.
Times had changed and Polaroid didn't change with them. They never gave more than a nod to anything other than their heritage.
Those who insist on living in the past have no place in the future.
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If they put that kind of crap on their site, they've got problems indeed...
People are looking at this through their geek googles. You've drank too much Slashdot!
Polaroid isn't necessarily suffering because of technology change, technological innovation, or anything else that geeks care about. Polariod could be in trouble because of more mundane "old business" reasons, such as lack of innovation, not focusing on core competencies, out of control costs, poor management, and so forth. Sure, these things might be related to technology, but I think it is silly to blame only technology for their problems.
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Had a party last night.
Took polaroids and had a digital:
The digital was untouched and the polaroid took 405 pics before we ran out of film.
Polaroids are instant (no shutter lag), give you a hard, permanent picture within seconds.
Polaroid's current problems are due to a load of debt assumed in 1988 due to a hostile takeover bid.
However, assuming money is not an object, give people at a party a choice between taking polaroids and using a digital and the polaroid will win out.
I just wish that polaroid film was cheaper. It is a superior technology to digital in many ways. Sure it is an "analog" technology versus a digital one, but the world is analog not digital.
BTW, didn't get any good chick pix that I can publish, so don't rub it in.
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This is one of the things that, say, Scott McNealy would point out as a "disruptive technology". Digital Cameras came, and Polaroid didn't change.
For the consumer, the choice was almost obvious. Do you want buy a camera, and have to pay for film all the time, or do you want a more expensive camera that takes "free pictures"? (Okay, not quite free, but very close.)
Customers don't like the pay-per-use model. They hate it. Anything that moves away from that will win consumers. You see this happen over and over again. Companies need to latch onto this and embrace it.
I feel bad for Polaroid, but it is really a win for us that technology has managed to create something better that has succeeded in the marketplace.
Polaroid is really a victim of their own patents.
The cornerstone for Polaroid's business was their patents on instant film technology. No other company could compete in that market because of it. When Kodak attempted to enter the market in the 1970's, Poloroid stopped them, as they were violating their patents.
Because they had no competition, they didn't diversify. Actually they did, but it was too little, too late. Sure, they add low end 35mm cameras, 35mm film and digital cameras to their product line, but they couldn't establish a leadership role in any of these market segments. They still relied on their instant film business as a core.
New technology killed their own older, proprietory technology. Had they tried to embrace other technologies earlier (like been in the 35mm market about 10 years before) they might have build enough diversity on "open" technology to carry them through the predictable demise of their proprietory technology.
Polaroid should be a lesson for other technology companies: continue to innovate or else!
Polaroid did pioneer instant photography. Dr. Edwin Land had the 2nd largest number of patents assigned to him personally in the US. Polaroid was the prototypical high-tech startup that pioneered a new market. They *owned* the instant film market.
Ironically Polaroid also did much of the early work on digital photography and held a number of early patents. They could have rolled out digital cameras long ago but feared cannibalizing their existing markets. So they stayed with the tried-and-true and eventually became irrelevant.
Polaroid was also the classic engineering-run company. Never did market studies. Never did usability testing. Never attempted to create a design identity. If anything they were known for the incredibly clever & complex folding of their cameras (the awesome chemistry was hidden.)
They did try to branch out a bit. In the late 70's they introduced "Polavision", their instant movie system which bombed in a big way. In the recriminations Dr. Land "moved on" and Polaroid was left to continue the course he had left it on, never to really change significantly afterwards.
Oh, they came out with kiddie cameras and cheap cameras and cameras that printed to stickers. Some were decent successes but nothing really ground shaking. Other companies slowly but steadily took away their drivers-license photos and other markets with alternative technologies. For the past few years there've been promises of a new line in digital photography but many of the proposed products are dubious (dual instant-photo with a digital copy?) and all are vapor still.
Polaroid does have about 2 billion in assets - properties, patents, plants, contracts, etc. Their employees have all been aware of what has been happening and even in a company famous for dedication folks have been jumping ship for the past few years. The retirees are all up in arms and are likely screwed as their benefits are tied up in the company.
Lessons? Don't stop innovating. Don't define yourself as "The Something Company". Complete domination of your market is only important as long as your market is unique. Don't rely only on completely amazing technology to sell your product; you need to identify, listen-to & cultivate your customers.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
Digital cameras lack something real cameras have. Take the classic blackmail example:
Me: TAKE A LOOK AT THESE SENATOR!
*Neema throws down photos on desk*
Senator: *GASP*
Me: That's right. You. Dancing with the forbidden monkey. Dancing the forbidden dance with the forbidden monkey!
Senator: Please... if these get out, I'll never get reelected. And if I don't get reelected, I can't get the Senator's discount at Ben and Jerry's!
Me: And don't even think of ripping these up! I have copies at home! But, I think we can work something out...
*Senator pulls out check book*
But now, with these god damn digital cameras:
Me: TAKE A LOOK AT THESE SENATOR!
*Neema gently places digital camera on desk, so it doesn't break*
Senator: Yeah, my daughter has one of these.
Me: No, no, no. Argh. It turned off. It does that. Turns off automatically after 3 minutes... ok... gimme that...
*Neema turns on camera, places on desk again*
Me: OK, TAKE A LOOK AT THESE SENATOR!
Senator: It's a dog.
Me: Oh yeah, that's my dog Scruffy. Argh. Yeah, press the right arrow. Get past those pictures. Yep, that's Aunt Sally. Come on, a bit faster. ARGH, JUST GIVE IT TO ME!
*Grabs camera, scrolls to incriminating pictures*
Me: THERE YOU ARE! YOU, DANCING THE FORBIDDEN DANCE WITH THE FORBIDDEN MONKEY!
Senator: Please... if these get out, I'll never get reelected. And if I don't get reelected, I can't get the Senator's discount at Ben and Jerry's!
Me: Yeah, well, I'm going to stop by staples to get glossy photo paper and I'll be printing out a bunch of these!
*Senator pulls out check book*
I still like the first situation better.
I don't know why I feel so indifferent about this. Maybe its because I have an Uncle who worked for Kodak (in Rochester NY). I remember when I was about age 11 or so, He was telling me how Kodak lost their battle in court to continue making their Instamatic (sp?) cameras. Polariod has a history of trying to edge out competition, just like any other corporation. If they can't keep up, hey, what goes around...
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Poloroid has never been in the self-developing photograph business. Nobody wants self-developing photographs. People want instant photographs, and Poloroid has been in the instant photography business for ages now.
Digital photography also provides instant photographs, so Poloroid has new competition.
This is exactly what happened to the "rail" industry. "Rail" companies were and are railroads in the freight hauling business and the passenger transportation business. Because they thought of themselves as a rail business, they didn't invest heavily in the new technologies of tractor-trailer trucks, coach bussing, and passenger airliners. As such, they saw their market failing, when what was happening was that their market was working quite well--serviced by companies which invested in new technologies.
A word to the suits. The market you are in is not the technology you sell or use, but the benefit you give your customers. You're not in the rail business, you're in the freight business. You're not in the pinball business, you're in the arcade entertainment business. You're not in the floppy disk business, you're in the removable media business.
Companies that understood this survived the tractor-trailer, the video game, and the CD-RW. Those that didn't have gone the way of the dodo.
--The basis of all love is respect
Don't forget, they have had a lot of name recognition for "instant photos" on the world market. They could have had a big jump on the rest when it came to marketing digital camera technology.
That's why I bought a Polaroid digital camera a few years ago when I was looking that (at the time) cost me $350.00. I figured that if anyone was going to take care to make a nice digital camera it would be Polaroid, considering the importance of their name and their stake in instant photography. I had been a long time Polaroid film camera user, and felt like I'd be willing to pay a little more (once again) for someone who did instant (this time digital) photography properly.
The camera was a total piece of 1-megapixel-shit. It took horrible, grainy, blurry pictures whose colors bled into each other. The chromatic aberration was something to behold, the hue reproduction was nasty (everything was brown!), the flash was weak, and it would eat a set of lithium AA batteries in only about 10 minutes of use. The worst part of it was that the construction was horribly cheap -- battery and connector doors were like parts of a McDonald's happy meal toy -- made of thin, brittle plastic and held in place by friction alone.
Figuring that maybe I had just been unlucky and got ahold of a lemon or a preproduction model or a customer return or something, I took it back and exchanged it for another. Same deal. I was about to give up on digital photography. It still hadn't occurred to me that Polaroid was at fault for putting out a truly lousy product.
Then I had a chance to work with a friend's Olympus digital camera in the same price range. It took great pictures that really completely outdid 35mm consumer-level products. Compared to the Polaroid camera I had bought, it had a similar 1-megapixel resolution, had more features, had removable/expandable memory (via SmartMedia), was built very solidly, and was about the same price as the Polaroid with batteries lasting about four times longer.
I bought the Olympus camera and was thrilled at the first download of photos, which were TRULY great (esp. the macro shots) and was able to compare and see just how awful the Polaroid's photos were.
Since then, a number of friends who were considering Polaroid digital cameras have looked at my early shots and decided to buy Olympus instead. And last year, when I wanted to upgrade to a higher resolution camera to get 8x10 photos out of it, I ended up going with a Nikon Coolpix without even considering Polaroid after using their film cameras for years.
With their initial foray into digital, they lost me and many of my friends as customers. Too bad they didn't take the technology more seriously.
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It's really too bad that polaroid is going out of business (well, filing bankrupt, anyway) because if you ask a lot of photographers, they will tell you that polaroid film has unique and beautiful saturation and color levels. The film often adds a hazy, almost surreal glow to it's pictures, and the photos have a filtered, artistic feel to them. The polaroid 'following' is almost that which is similar to the lomo following - practically a cult.
Personally I think that polaroid cameras, and the entire idea or polaroid pictrures, is also superb in that it can provide you with instant, hard proof of an event. Not to discount the quality of digital photography, but where I work (in the ER of a large hospital) polariod cameras have time and again allowed us to document abuse, sexual abuse, rape, accidents, and other events that would incur an unholy amount of paperwork were we unable to provide visual proof. I can assure you that many a polaroid photo has been used in saving many young girls', battered womens' and childrens' lives. A picture is worth a thousand words, and by being able to provide images of the bruise, wound, or overall condition right before it's covered up in bandages and dressings is important. Another thing that makes them so valuable is that they're point-and-shoot-and-develop; any nurse, doctor or tech can do it. I hope polaroid doesn't stop selling their film, at least!
I'm the unfortunate owner of one of their low-end "Fun! Flash 640SE" cameras.
My complaint with it has nothing to do with the low quality of the images (which look as though they are merely "interpolated" to 640x480 rather than actually BEING 640x480 as advertised) nor the cheap construction - I rather expected both for a ~$80 digital camera.
My complaint is their horrendous support for it. In my specific case, I'd emailed to them asking about protocol specs so that the gPhoto project might be able to put together a working driver. Now, the fact that they would give no useful information is, sadly, not all that unusual, but the form of the response was rather unimpressive. Over a month after sending the email, I got back a medium-sized email in reply. ALL BUT ONE LINE of that email was form-letter "thank you for contacting polaroid blah blah blah". The very first line was the only unique one. It said "that information is not available."
Given that Xirlink actually made the camera core, and there APPEARS to be some sort of business-stifling "Intellectual Property" agreement between Polaroid's digital division and that "ArcSoft" company that makes the obnoxious 'pretty bird' program (I forget the name of the windows 9x-only software - its mascot is a clown-colored bird...) that is supposed to keep it such that only the Polaroid/ArcSoft drivers are able to get to the camera, so I wrote back asking if they meant that they didn't HAVE the information (i.e. that I should contact Xirlink or ArcSoft instead) or that they were not allowed to release it. Over a week later, another one-terse-line-plus-formletter-crap response - "We do not make that information available." (which is not only somewhat rude but as before doesn't even answer the question.)
It was then that I figured they were screwed...if they had no interest in AT LEAST being polite to potential new markets, let alone actually encouraging their development, it seemed pretty obvious that other digital camera companies would roll over them, and, as others have already pointed out in this vein, considering how expensive and low quality their other "instant photograph" products were, that digital cameras would slowly devour that market as they got cheaper, and polaroid would have nothing to fall back on. Nice going, Polaroid.
(On the plus side, last I heard there was some progress in getting recognizeable images from the Polaroid "Fun!" cameras, so maybe I'll be able to actually use mine eventually...More info about the cameras here and, more currently, here.)
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there is a world of difference between new technology making old technology obsolete through superiority and new technology making traditional methods of protecting intellectual property harder to enforce.
Digital cameras, and other techological advancements of its kind, provide a superior and more economical service to all necessary parties. In other words, they are both superior and exist organically, that is to say, without leaching off the outside world.
"Advancements" such as filesharing certainly disrupt, but they do not necessarily provide a complete solution for all involved--even for its own continued existence (e.g., once novel IP dies, the need for those kinds of services dies). This much simply is not arguable. What is arguable, is whether or not such a solution is even POSSIBLE. I lean strongly towards the IMPOSSIBLE side, but nonetheless I think even the IP owners' critics should be aware of the difference.
With real estate prices as they are in Cambridge, I bet Polaroid could cut a chunk of debt just by renting or selling off their land. They have properties in some very desirable locations.
Commercial space in Cambridgeport rents at around $60/sq foot, when it can be found. Even with the current "recession" prices haven't budged. Hop on over the the WSJ for some insight.
With their name, their engineering talent, their land (to provide some cash) and a reasonable restructuring, Polaroid could relaunch themselves as a player in the digital market in under two years.
Polaroid thought they were in the instant camera business, when they were really in the camera business.
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In which case she was probably going to be outta luck. The cinema has been headed digital for both production and distribution for years. While there is some purpose to learning the old technology nobody uses super 8 film for quality purposes.
The market for professional film is nowhere near big enough to support a company the size of Polaroid. The Professional and serious amateur market for film is negligible compared to the market for holiday snaps. Polaroid's share of the professional market was much smaller proportionately than that of Kodak or Fuji. For a start you have to use a medium or large format camera.
The only part of the professional market that uses film in quantities big enough to support major corporations has been movies. A movie camera eats 12 35 mm snaps worth of film a second. To make an hour of movie takes ten hours (at least) of film stock.
The shift at the moment is on the production side. Digital editing has been arround for some time. Directors like Lucas have been moving towards shooting with digital cameras. While some directors will stick with film for years the bulk of the market will go digital. Remember that a bad movie takes as much film stock to shoot it as an art house flick. The transition will be complete in three to five years time when low cost digital projectors become available. The $10K cost of striking a print is what keeps many makers of celluloid film in business.
There will always be people who have to bore us with the reasons why celluloid was better. Just as there are still bores who will explain at inordinate length why vinyl is better than CD or why gas light is much better than electricity.
Recently I talked to an audiophile type who went on for hours about the spiffy new CD player he had bought for several thousand dollars which allegedly had a precision made drive that rotated the CD at exactly the 'right' rate. As if the circuitry feeding the D2A converter would be affected by the rate at which the input buffer was filled.
The fact is that within a couple more generations the top end digital cameras will outstrip the resolution of 35 mm film. There are also interesting possibilities for configuring digital film that are impossible with analog, logarithmic response to light for example giving a much greater dynamic range than the 100:1 that is possible with film.
Some celluloid use will continue, but it will be a minority even amongst the professional market.
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