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Kodak Lagging in Digital World
mattmcal writes "Wired reports on the Kodak's struggle to survive and Mark Glaser comments on their demise at The Industry Standard saying that Kodak failed to take digital photography seriously, or at least failed to find a way to successfully transform their business. The Photo Marketing Association reported that in 2003, digital cameras outsold analog. Kodak's stock has been hovering near its 20-year low. Finally, today, the Asian Business Times reports that billionaire Carl Icahn sold all his shares saying the current business model there doesn't work."
charging exhorbient prices for a camera dock which didnt work on different model kodak cameras when you upgraded. Compared to the others which charged a much more fairer rate for accessories which reflected their value/build quality, it comes as no surprise their marketshare is so low.
CD-R(W)s are a joke. I have had Plextor CD-Rs become unreadable in a couple of years they spent in a dark closet in my house. I suspect DVD-+R(W)s are even worse due to the higher data density.
Hard drives aren't much better either.
The owls are not what they seem
Any company that is large enough and is run by economists and overpaid suits long enough will inevitably run aground. This happened to Polaroid in the 1990s and IBM in the '80s, and indeed to Apple some ten years ago. It will probably happen to Microsoft one day soon. Today, the success or failure of a company is the focus it puts on technology, and the transformation of that technology into stuff they can sell. The masters at this right now are Apple, Canon and Sony, and yes, Microsoft. Many other major companies just don't have a clue.
Properly stored original film negatives last decades, whereas digital media is gone in a blink of an eye when your harddrive/memory card breaks down or you accidentally erase your media.
That's why we have this handy thing called *backups*, something that is impossible with analog media (you will always have generational loss).
I have documents sitting on my laptop from the mid-80s and due to this sterling innovation of lossless copying I have never in all that time suffered a serious data loss. Every time I get a new computer, anything of importance moves across, and is stored at a minimum on two seperate hard disks and optical media also.
It's also a great advantage to be able to manage all of my digital information easily, and in one place. By contrast, I have both lost and damaged many negatives from only the last few years. Through my negligence, I will grant, but this never would have happened if they had been digital.
There is nothing inherent in digital media that makes it more volatile than analog media, and indeed the fact that it is digital, and thus allows perfect copies, makes the media ultimately irrelevant.
You've got to be kidding...
I can't comment on the quality of Plextor CD-Rs, but I haven't had experiences anything like that. In fact, I've never had a CD-R fall apart on it's own... only after being handled (never touch the top) and I've been archiving CD-Rs since the first (1x) CD-Recorders came out.
Use good quality media, put them in jewel cases. Don't double them up, don't even think about using soft cases (flexible plastic/rubber, or paper). Be careful to handle them properly. Go easy on the labeling, etc.
You can suspect, assume, and theorize all you want, but they don't have anything to do with the facts.
Umm, why not? I've never seen (nor heard of) a hard drive, unplugged, unused, going out. It's only after a very large number of hours of use that they finally die. No deathstars need apply.
Besides, you'd be crazy to have only one copy of anything. The chances of one stationary HDD failing is tiny, the chances of two failing are nominal.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I'm a former Kodak employee. Kodak will be facing hard times for a number of years, but I think what people forget is that most of the bad press they are getting is because they cut their divident by 3/4 so they can reinvent themselves. All of the people who owned stock are incredibly pissed, and every analyst will never give a positive review of a company who does this, probably because they are heavily into that stock.
Kodak will probably turn it around, because 5 years too late they realized what digital will mean. Executives at Kodak were so far behind that all employees were laughing when they were still talking about film not going away.
That said, Kodak is finally realizing that it needs to turn things around. The company will be much different in 5 years, but they are so far behind with their organizational structure drastic measures need to be taken.
Anyway, so what does Kodak do when it is trying to evolve into a technology services company rather than a manufacturing company? It lays off hundreds of young, agressive, future-minded people like me who are steeped in technology and keeps the slew of white-haired oldsters incapable of realizing what real change is about.
So the old time corporate culture of the good old boy's club still exists, and the company won't move on until the morons at the top realize this. Dan Carp (CEO), you better get your crap together.