Kodak Failing, But Camera Phones Not To Blame

An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from The Conversation: "According to the Wall Street Journal, camera manufacturer Kodak is preparing to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, following a long struggle to maintain any sort of viable business. The announcement has prompted some commentators to claim that Kodak's near-demise has been brought on by: a failure to innovate, or a failure to anticipate the shift from analogue to digital cameras, or a failure to compete with the rise of cameras in mobile phones. Actually, none of these claims are true. Where Kodak did fail is in not understanding what people take photographs for, and what they do with photos once they have taken them." Continues the reader: "Looking at camera data from Flickr, of images uploaded in 2011, camera phones only make up 3% of the total. Dedicated cameras from Canon, Nikon and yes, Kodak were used to take 97% of the images. What Kodak failed to understand is that people have switched from taking photos for remembering and commemorative reasons to using photos for identity and communication. The shift changes the emphasis away from print to social media platforms and dedicated apps."

Comments

Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Anonymous Coward]

Dedicated cameras from Canon, Nikon and yes, Kodak were used to take 97% of the images

Kodak makes its money (or used to) from film, not the camera hardware itself. All those 'dedicated cameras' are busy taking shots without a single bit of negative being exposed.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Teancum]

When the Kodak Brownie was introduced, yes, you could say that was their business model. It was successful for a great many decades too and Kodak made a pile of money off of that effort. They consumed so much silver for the production of their film that they even owned silver mines with much of the silver processed there was simply going to their own factories rather than being used for bullion or coins.

That said, Kodak also was instrumental in developing the digital camera, invented the *.psd image format (still by far the best quality image format you can get in terms of the dynamic range of colors you can record for any computer imaging data format) and put in the engineering effort to try and change with the times.

The sad thing is that this isn't the only photo equipment company which has suffered in terms of being relevant or even totally collapsed. The Polaroid Corporation was once a rather large company too, and now is only a marketing brand for Chinese knock-off cameras where the company itself doesn't even exist at all any more. If you look at Fujifilm, once a major competitor to Kodak, they are also struggling under the same kinds of problems and fighting for relevancy.

All told, it really is a shift of technology on to of a shift in business models that are required to be successful. Then again Xerox had a similar kind of problem trying to stay relevant over the years, where it could have owned the PC market with the devices built at their PARC research group but instead let Apple Computer (in the form of Steve Jobs) essentially copy all of their ideas and build the Macintosh.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[larry bagina]

That said, Kodak also was instrumental in developing the digital camera, invented the *.psd image format (still by far the best quality image format you can get in terms of the dynamic range of colors you can record for any computer imaging data format) and put in the engineering effort to try and change with the times.

.pcd?

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Anonymous Coward]

That said, Kodak also was instrumental in developing the digital camera, invented the *.psd image format (still by far the best quality image format you can get in terms of the dynamic range of colors you can record for any computer imaging data format) and put in the engineering effort to try and change with the times.

That was the PCD format. PSD is an Adobe/Photoshop format which is basically started out as a proprietary TIFF container to accommodate various things which make it more friendly to modern uses, but mostly as a vendor-lock-in device.

Photo CD used a color space based on phosphors which were used in computer monitor and televisions, which is important because analog monitors can be driven in a way that they don't clip like an LCD monitor will, causing an abrupt line of brightness, (posterization) instead these areas on the monitor genuinely are whiter/brighter than normal. This makes PhotoCD images appear blown out in the highlights when viewed on modern hardware.

So, it's not really that it's better in this regard, but simply different. This feature is woefully un-useful for print, for example. Also, for what it's worth, there are color spaces which completely blow Photo CD's color space out of the water in terms of total gamut, if not overall dynamic range, because unlike Photo CD these formats are hard limited at 100% brightness. Example: ProPhoto RGB which, incidentally, was also developed by Kodak and can record many colors which the human eye cannot see!

Unfortunately it's mostly academic for now because few displays are capable of accurately rendering a great deal of the tonality those color spaces represent, because 1) DVI is limited to 8 bits per component, and 2) at a certain point you basically need more physical color components, like yellow and violet 'subpixels'. Example: the expensive LaCie monitors some professional designers and photographers like to use can render 100%+ of the NTSC color space, and 98% of Adobe RGB 1998, but still, the human eye can see a lot that these color spaces can't produce.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[kurt555gs]

Just like "sexting" replaced Polaroid.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[oztiks]

Kodak going broke?? No kidding!

I guess that's what happens when you refuse to change your horseshoe factories into tyre making factories after people invent cars.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Bert64]

What you have, is an old but highly profitable business model (selling cameras, and *then* both selling and developing film) becoming obsolete, and replaced with a new business model thats better for consumers - namely just selling digital cameras.

The problem is that these companies became bloated from the huge profits they made selling and developing film, so the profits obtained from selling just the cameras are no longer enough to sustain the business. We're just lucky that they didn't start lobbying to have digital cameras banned, and force people to continue using film in order to protect their profits.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Anonymous Coward]

The only problem I see, other companies made cheaper digital cameras. Kodak made money off of film, taking into account the hundreds of film developers who would put your pictures on paper most used kodak film/paper, and probably kodak chemicals. However they were a brand name and still made money off of hardware, there were only a few companies around who could keep up. That changed when other unknown companies started to create cheaper film cameras, and continued when the then unknown companies (maybe even well known) started to create digital cameras for the everyday person to use or afford. I would like to know how Flickr would even know who was using what camera, maybe based on the pictures format, but the format would be a guessing game could very well be that any camera was used.

I believe Kodak had is own software for there digital cameras, but the format video is Apple. I have a kodak digital camera, but there software is not needed, other then the cheap image program to fix or slightly enhance your photos. I could use my free Nero's CD and there image software and have more options..

It is an interesting story, and or view point but times change, RCA ect... no longer control the market on TVs, in fact a lot of the big names that dominated for years no longer control that market. Other companies emerged to help cut the pricing making them affordable to anyone, RCA to be honest was a crap TV I had 3 they always blew out, I was able to fix a couple of them myself but they went bad 5-6 years after I bought them. LCD Tv's were pricey until other companies started to join in, now the companies that had the edge in LCD TV's are falling off. You cannot make your bread and butter off of one product I know they tried other things, but so did other companies and they are just about ghosts of what they once were.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[catmistake]

Kodak makes its money (or used to) from film, not the camera hardware itself

No, the camera hardware also was an enourmous part of Kodak's traditional business. And not just cameras and film, but also the proprietary development processes, chemicals used in those, and paper...and quite a bit more than that. Big company, had lots of products besides film.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[catmistake]

PSD is an Adobe/Photoshop format which is basically started out as a proprietary TIFF container to accommodate various things which make it more friendly to modern uses, but mostly as a vendor-lock-in device.

It is the Adobe Photoshop native format... not just some extra format. And its unlikely a TIFF container, probably closer to encapsulated PostScript (also Adobe). Also, its unlikely that the format was intended as a vender lock-in device, even though I only know of two applications that can open a psd document, Photoshop and Illustrator (Adobe again). Like any native format, it stores all the information in the native document you create from the application, such that from the native format you can export to any other format that Photoshop has available (and there are many).

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[tempmpi]

Also, for what it's worth, there are color spaces which completely blow Photo CD's color space out of the water in terms of total gamut, if not overall dynamic range, because unlike Photo CD these formats are hard limited at 100% brightness. Example: ProPhoto RGB which, incidentally, was also developed by Kodak and can record many colors which the human eye cannot see!

It gets even worse: XYZ, a colorspace used for e.g. digital cinema and based on the response of the receptors in the eyes contains "imaginary colors" that can't exist in the real world. E.g.: It is impossible to find any mix of wavelengths that will only stimulate the Y/green receptor but not also stimulate the X and Z receptors at least slightly. But XYZ can express "colors" like that, that are supposed to stimulate only one receptor without also slightly stimulating the others, even through response curves of the receptors overlap. Maybe some day direct brain stimulation will make us able to see these colors that can't exist in the real world.

Unfortunately it's mostly academic for now because few displays are capable of accurately rendering a great deal of the tonality those color spaces represent, because 1) DVI is limited to 8 bits per component, and 2) at a certain point you basically need more physical color components, like yellow and violet 'subpixels'.

Well, HDMI and DisplayPort can both do up to 16 bits per component and xvYCC. Also 3 color components are fine for transmission, just for displaying some of these more extreme colors you will need more than three components.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Maow]

Then again Xerox had a similar kind of problem trying to stay relevant over the years, where it could have owned the PC market with the devices built at their PARC research group but instead let Apple Computer (in the form of Steve Jobs) essentially copy all of their ideas and build the Macintosh.

Channelling /. user bonch 'cause I cannot help myself:

There comes a point where it's obvious that other companies are liberally borrowing from Jonathan Ive's design shop at Apple.

[...]

I realize Slashdot comments tend to have an Apple slant (to put it mildly), but come on, this is completely obvious "inspiration" from Apple.

[...]

I think what really goes on here is that some people just don't want to give Apple credit for anything, and they hate when people do credit them, so when comparisons between designs are pointed out, it pisses them off and they make snarky remarks about "rounded rectangles."

So, don't you see? Xerox copied ideas from Ive's and Jobs' future! Why, oh why won't you at least give them credit where credit is due, Slashdot?

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[walshy007]

I would like to know how Flickr would even know who was using what camera

Digital cameras often embed exif data about the camera into the files.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to know how Flickr would even know who was using what camera, maybe based on the pictures format, but the format would be a guessing game could very well be that any camera was used.

It's called metadata. In windoows XP, select an image file. Right click, select Properties - Summary - Advanced.

I can't believe anyone who thinks he has anything to say about photography didn't know this.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[silentcoder]

>That said, Kodak also was instrumental in developing the digital camera, invented the *.psd image format

This is partly right, but not as simple. The censor at the heart of all digital cameras was invented by a Kodak employee - at a time when Kodak was among the largest patent holders in the world. The executives he showed his design to told him "Forget it, we make film not computer stuff".
The result is very much photography's own version of the XEROX-PARC/APPLE saga - as Kodak didn't see the value of what their employee had built, failed to patent it and saw his design being given to all the competition.

Thus came the digital camera revolution - one reason why it had so many competitors so early on was that nobody owned a patent on the censor until it was too late to get one - mostly because the company where it was invented hadn't thought it worth the bother of applying for.

Even if your cynical you could say that if Kodak had foreseen a possible threat from digital they could have patented the censor simply to prevent digital cameras from being made at all.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[alexhs]

But XYZ can express "colors" like that, that are supposed to stimulate only one receptor without also slightly stimulating the others, even through response curves of the receptors overlap. Maybe some day direct brain stimulation will make us able to see these colors that can't exist in the real world.

You can actually experience that kind of colors as optic illusions : if you fix a blue sheet, you will strain your blue cones. If you then fix a green or yellow sheet, you should get an "impossible" color. There are other ways to get such impossible colors, but in any case you can't perceive them in "normal" conditions.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Lumpy]

Kodak INVENTED the digital camera and was the only company selling them for the first year. It's the idiot CEO that was in place at that time that let them produce craptastic cameras instead of partnering with a camera maker.

It is their own fault. Over the history of the digital camera, the crappiest digital cameras were all kodak. WTF were they thinking? They never tried to pioneer the digital film back, that could have made them a ton of money. etc...

Kodak is dead because their leadership was stupid. They chased the maximum profits per quarter instead of chasing what would continue the company in the seachange they created themselves.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Lumpy]

" If you look at Fujifilm, once a major competitor to Kodak, they are also struggling under the same kinds of problems and fighting for relevancy."

not really, Fujifilm is doing fine. Their DSLR bodies are 5-10x better than any Canon or Nikon and are heralded as the best of the industry that the big pros use.
    Fuji is the only company with 3D digital cameras that are built good and take fantastic photos. They are owning the 3d digital photography market and own the process for printing 3d prints that can be viewed without glasses.

They also are the king of lenses for ENG video. Fuji Lenses are the top of the line in video lenses out there.

They might not be a well known consumer brand, but they still are a top renown professional brand.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[swalve]

Actually, an easy way to see an impossible color is to watch the David Letterman show. On his set, there are a number of things painted in a burgandy/maroon color. If you let that color burn into the retina for a while, when you close your eyes, you get a blue green that's just awesome.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Anonymous Coward]

SENSOR for goodness sake!!! SENSOR, not CENSOR!
There is no realtime censorship performed by Kodak cameras!

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Lumpy]

"The only problem I see, other companies made cheaper digital cameras. "

they made cheaper digitals that were a LOT better.

I owned the first Canon Digital camera model, it was 35% cheaper than the equilivant from Kodak and took 800X better photographs because it had decent glass. Kodaks' offerings were using plastic lenses with the :fuzzy: effect in every shot. Even at the low resolutions of 1.2megapixel you could see the lenses on kodak cameras were garbage.

Kodak lost because they offered garbage products.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget they also make a lot of money on horrible support for hardware that is designed to go bad quickly with their business product line of photo printer kiosks. And what is with their policy of having to get software and firmware updates via the film vender only, while the venders rarely even ask let alone inform or provide a released update? It is so frustrating that you have to deal with support level 1, then you sales manager or customer advocacy or going around in circles between them all until they offer to mail or email you the needed file, when it would make everyone's life easier by posting it to their website or a torrent. And why do one type of koisk have passport support for other counties build-in, while the other does not so you have to play "Guess which settings are right" as if playing a type of musical chairs?

With all that said, Level 3 support is good, as well as the head of Quality Control and Customer Advocacy (most of the time).

I think what should happen is what Cory Doctorow said in his book Makers. Have DeriCell buy up kodak, gut the company, while keeping the distribution chain intact, then fund cells of makers type teams and bring their wares to market. From the book one example are tubs with RF chips that will come alive when you send a signal from your laptop or phone that you are looking for item X, so you can know where that thing is.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Sam H]

Maybe some day direct brain stimulation will make us able to see these colors that can't exist in the real world.

This was first created in 1938 and is called LSD.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[cvtan]

So who was that person? I worked at Kodak for 26 years. Maybe I know the person. Kodak certainly didn't invent CCDs, so I'm curious. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge-coupled_device

I have to agreed with the "Forget it..." comment. I remember walking into (supervisor) T*m K*ll*'s office to get my pat on the back for co-writing a paper with Armin K. Weiss (prime mover of lenticular lens arrays for image sensors: "Light sensing devices with lenticular pixels" patent). We were told what was needed was a "silicon solution" and were given a Snickers bar. Kodak sat on lens arrays for years. The reasoning was, "If we do it, then everyone will do it." Now everyone uses the technology.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you serious? Fuji doesn't currently make any DSLR cameras, and the ones they did make in the past were basically rebadged Nikon bodies.

They do have a couple interesting albeit expensive niche cameras like the X100 and X10, althouth the latter is plagued by sensor issues (google "X10 orbs" or "X10 specular highlights"), and the former while a very nice camera has serious limitations (fixed focal lenght non interchangeable lens, poor performance wide open, etc)

Then they have a slew of mostly forgettable P&S, that aren't sufficiently distinguishable from any other manufacturer's P&S to matter much, since the P&S market is pretty much owned by Sony, Canon and Panasonic.

If anything, Fuji is aiming at the niche market of street or candid photographers, especially the ones that don't have the moolah to buy Leica. And even those are mostly going for Sony Nex or m4/3 bodies with adapters, which enables one to use old rangefinder lenses, as there is a cache of very good manual focus old glass from Leica, CV, Nikon, Canon, etc.

Pretty much anyone doing professional work is using either Canon and Nikon (sports, photo journalism, etc), or Pentax medium format (645d) or very expensive digital backs on Hasselblads or technical/view cameras and the like, for studio work. Even Sony (which manufactures all sensors for Nikon) churned out a couple of full frame cameras (A850, A900) a few years ago, but couldn't make inroads into the Canikon market and pretty much gave up, opting instead to focus on translucent mirror or mirrorless cameras.

Also, I'm pretty pissed at Fuji for discontinuing Neopan b&w films, which have been my favourites for the last decade or so. Recently (after my stock of both films ended) I started shooting Kodak Tri-X instead of Neopan 400, and Kodak Plus-X instead of Neopan Acros 100. Just my luck, Plus-X has been discontinued, and Tri-X will probably go the way of the dodo as well, now that Kodak is in the crapper. Time to stock up while I can, I guess. I just bought a new horizontal freezer for the basement, to store film, and ordered 800 rolls of Tri-X (the whole stock my usual "dealer" had) and scavenged over 500 rolls of Plus-X from various sources. When it's gone, I'll probably go for Foma 100 and Ilford HP5.

It's really sad to see first Agfa go tits up (oh, how I would kill for a couple 100ft rolls of APX25, Efke is nowhere near the same), then Fuji discontinue pretty much all b&w films, and now Kodak. Really tough times for us, analog photographers.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[silentcoder]

I honestly cannot remember, I read it in a book a few months ago - the scene stuck in my head but I can't remember the names involved. I'm sure a few smart google's will turn it up though.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[locofungus]

I suspect it's confusion with the Bayer filter.

Which was patented (at least according to wikipedia). But maybe Kodak licenced the patent very cheaply or competitors just didn't use it until the patent had expired.

Tim.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[hjf]

Why don't you buy bulk film? 100ft cans.
BTW, don't you like FP4+? I love it.
Also, by the looks of it, movie film stock will be around for a while too. 1000ft of eastman 5222/7222 should last you a while :P

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[hjf]

Ilford only makes black and white films, and I don't see them going broke. Not even decades after color has been available to everyone.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Swampash]

"I can't believe anyone who thinks he has anything to say about photography didn't know this."

THIS

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Anonymous Coward]

SENSOR for goodness sake!!! SENSOR, not CENSOR!
There is no realtime censorship performed by Kodak cameras!

Yes there is. The quality of Kodak digital cameras is so bad, nobody with a clue wants to use one to take a photo. Censorship of the highest order. :)

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[domatic]

I'm not sure about the sensor itself but a Kodak engineer did invent a prototype self-contained digital camera in 1976.

http://www.retrothing.com/2008/05/kodaks-first-di.html

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, but it's a special kind of failure in Kodak's case because they practically invented the digital camera. It's like you invented the car, and then failed to compete as you watched your horseshoe business gradually fade away over the next 2 decades.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[AJH16]

Aren't most displays still TN panels anyway with only 6 bit color? Granted I have noticed there seems to be a rise in the number of S-IPS and S-PVA monitors on the market so that trend appears that it may finally be changing.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[AJH16]

It can actually be read in most Adobe products (such as Premiere and After Effects and InDesign for example). I agree on it having nothing to do with being a vendor lock-in device though. It was simply a cleaner way to encapsulate all the details of a Photoshop project in to a single file. Sure the format could have been to save in a standard image format for each layer and have some XML data to describe the details and then maybe put them all in some type of file compression like docx does, but that would probably have performance impacts that are undesirable when working with very large image files.

I suppose you could argue that not releasing the spec makes it a vendor lock in, but the format is also specific to a number of Adobe features. If the system opening the file didn't have exact equivalents of the algorithms in Photoshop, then the file would not open looking like the original artist had intended.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[JoeMerchant]

Kodak lost because they offered garbage products.

That depends on when and where you judge them - I had a 1.2Mpixel Kodak camera that was quite good and cost competitive at the time, of course it sucks in every category by today's standards, but for what was available in 1997, it was really good.

Kodak has also come out with some of the best high-end products on the market, but nosebleed high end does not make a big company (Apple is pedestrian high-end, you don't even have to make $100K/year to own Apple products as toys.)

It's easy to take potshots at a target as large as Kodak, but no single failure brought them down. I think the biggest part of their problem was that other competent companies entered their space and didn't allow them to survive... sure there were co-development and co-marketing agreements, but Kodak didn't win big enough, consistently enough, and Chapter 11 is a clear indicator that they failed to shrink gracefully.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[CastrTroy]

My first digital camera was a FujiFilm. Still works to this day, which is more than I can say for a lot of digital cameras I've owned, (mostly kodaks funnily enough). The Fuji takes great pictures. I'm still amazed by the quality of photos it takes next to the other point and shoot cameras I have. The resolution is only 2MP, but that's enough for viewing on any screen I own, or printing 5x7s. I really should take it back out of the garage again. The only problem I have with that is that it is about 1.5 inches thick. But other than that, great piece of hardware.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Anonymous Coward]

The censor at the heart of all digital cameras...

Well that would explain why the naughty bits on the personal photos of my wife are constantly pixelated.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[jank1887]

But didn't Kodak try to push that whole EasyShare set of cameras? For a while wasn't it actually one of the better (easier) cameras for mom and pop getting all the pictures they took online? sure, they were probably tying it to a Shutterfly-type 'get real prints' service, but it seemed that they at least had the right approach from the hardware side, with regard to enabling easier uploading. Did they just drop the ball when facebook came along?

Also, Kodak still makes money on film. Primarily medical film, however. Digital technologies are getting better there, but analog film is still the standard. "is that a tumor or just JPEG pixellation" is not something you want your doctor trying to decipher.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a lazy ass, I hate having to reload the canisters myself. That being said, I'm waiting for a few 100' rolls of Arista Premium 400 from Freestyle Photo, which is rebranded Tri-X.They don't sell bulk rolls of Arista Premium 100 anymore, which is a pity because it is rebranded Plus-X.

5222 is Double-X, it's been reformulated a while back and it's totally different from the 5222 I spent most of the 80's shooting, don't really care for it now.

I do have quite a lot of bulk film frozen, to be honest, expired from anywhere in the late 80's to 2006. It's mostly emulsions you can't get anymore (like the original 5222, some Neopan 400 I'm saving for a rainy day, Verichrome Pan, Technical Pan, Agfa Aviphot, etc)

I've never been much of an Ilford fan, I guess. They make very nice films, just not for me. But seeing as Ilford is very commited to b&w film, if it comes to that I'll start shooting FP4/HP5. In the mean time, I like Foma 100 a lot, it's got a really nice vintage tone. Arista Edu Ultra 100 and 400 is rebranded Fomapan 100 and 400, btw, and also cheaper. I don't like the 400 very much because it doesn't push very well, I liked to shoot Neopan 400 @ 1600 (developped in Rodinal stand), and now shoot Tri-X @ 1250/1600 (in Diafine).

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[afidel]

Kodak offered a WIDE variety of products from high resolution nearly six figure backs for large and medium format cameras to the cheapo plastic lens jobs you mention (cheap as in build, not necessarily price).

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Andy Dodd]

Yeah... The problem is that Kodak in the past few years has become associated with "cheap" in the wrong way. Not "cheap" as in inexpensive, but "cheap" as in consumer-grade gimmicky crap. Look at their stupid EasyShare dock - it was worthless if the camera took crappy pictures (garbage in garbage out) and fell apart if you looked at it the wrong way.

Meanwhile, Canon and Nikon were making nice solidly-build P&S cameras, and as more computers came with built in SD card readers, people didn't mind spending the 5 seconds to pop the card out and put it into the PC to transfer - it was a lot better than carrying that stupid dock around.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Anonymous Coward]

I see you've left out 'selling the computer and monitor and software and backup devices' from your analogy. If you're going on a What's better for Consumers rant at least get your calculus correct. Like most tech sites and tech people you make the assumption from the start that the computer is universal. Wrong in most of the world. (On the other hand, please, think as you like, but don't think I give a damn what that is.) And have a nice day!

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Andy Dodd]

They've figured out how to profitably carve out a niche as a smaller company - Kodak didn't.

Also, Ilford makes a lot of products for "final print" type products (photographic print paper, etc) - This market is also getting smaller, but it isn't getting hit as badly as the film market. Almost no one is using film, but people still want to make prints from their digital photos on occasion.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Andy Dodd]

The EasyShare cameras are a classic example of why Kodak is toast. In an era where PCs were including SD card readers and many people were buying laptops instead of desktops - the dock was pointless and in fact became a hindrance. It took only slightly longer to pull out the SD and put it into a reader than use the dock - IF the dock was even connected. If you were on the road with a laptop, you probably didn't even have the dock, and then all you had was a crappy point-and-shoot that would fall apart if you looked at it the wrong way.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[loupgarou21]

The thing I think is funny about Polaroid is that they closed down the instant film portion of their business when it was becoming more profitable again (there is/was a resurgence in popularity of instant photography in the last few years) so they could focus solely on rebranded electronics.

They were also working on a DVR/video streaming device in-house about 4 or 5 years ago, but I believe that was the only thing they were actually developing themselves, everything else was shitty electronics developed by other companies and sticking their own name on them (and I really do mean shitty, some of the stuff had as high as a 50% warranty rate.)

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[oztiks]

It's not as if the entire blacksmithing industry has totally disappeared either. Niche stuff will always have a place.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Hentes]

Unfortunately it's mostly academic for now because few displays are capable of accurately rendering a great deal of the tonality those color spaces represent, because 1) DVI is limited to 8 bits per component, and 2) at a certain point you basically need more physical color components, like yellow and violet 'subpixels'. Example: the expensive LaCie monitors some professional designers and photographers like to use can render 100%+ of the NTSC color space, and 98% of Adobe RGB 1998, but still, the human eye can see a lot that these color spaces can't produce.

While a display might not be enough, the extra detail comes handy in photoprinting.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[tibit]

I've got a highest-end (available at the time) Kodak easyshare digital camera a couple years ago. A day of shooting later, it went back to the store. It was useless. Slow saving, abominable UI decisions, noisy pictures, bugs in the firmware. That's my anecdote. That was the only Kodak camera I ever had. Got a powershot G9 instead and my wife is reasonably content.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Anonymous Coward]

Kodak's digital camera's are junk. I had one and it didn't last a year before all the pics it took were red or yellow.

I will not buy another one. I have been very happy with my Fuji digitals.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[jythie]

If I recall correctly, in Kodak's case it was not that they became bloated and could not sustain themselves from profits, but that their new CEO kept doing a stock pump by selling off profitable divisions in order to make good quarterly numbers at the expense of recurring profits. So they had the classic 80s/90s 'short term profits give everyone huge bonuses, 5 years down the road does not matter' behavior.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[jythie]

Every manufacturer makes garbage. Canon's low end stuff is crap too. Kodak made some really damn good high end stuff, and I still see Kodak backs fetching high prices on the used markets (a domain Canon has not even entered yet).

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[jythie]

Actually I do see Fuji stuff used for studio/product work, but that would fall under the technical camera category.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[jythie]

*nods* I know a few professional blacksmiths, still making horseshoes, no shortage of business. But as you say, it is a niche.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Anonymous Coward]

I had the Kodak DC290 and it was a great digital camera. It was 2.1 Megapixels and 3X zoom. The size was a little bulky but it took great photos and had several options considering the cost. The issue was that they didn't continue re-inventing and coming up with better products.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[kilfarsnar]

Maybe he works at Kodak.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Anonymous Coward]

not really, Fujifilm is doing fine. Their DSLR bodies are 5-10x better than any Canon or Nikon and are heralded as the best of the industry that the big pros use.

"Fujifilm has discontinued all D-SLR models, including the Fujifilm FinePix S5 Pro DSLR"

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[poolecl]

The Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Photoshop) shows that the file format has been documented (http://www.adobe.com/devnet-apps/photoshop/fileformatashtml/) As to why it doesn't use some sort of XMLish format, this thing was created in the early 90's, before XML based file formats were in vogue and computers were much less powerful.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Gilmoure]

*golf clap*

Also, OP: there?

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[hjf]

There's also LUCKY brand film, chinese stuff. Extremely cheap (at least here in Argentina it costs 1/3 of ilford and kodak). SHD 100 doesn't have Anti-halation backing. So that's an interesting experiment.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Gilmoure]

Even if my cynical what? My cynical truck? My cynical rifle? Am definitely feeling less than cromulant.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure the CEO still got a 13 million bonus for sucking. Just like Leo Apotheker for his stupid idea to turn HP into SAP2

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[oreiasecaman]

They chased the maximum profits per quarter instead of chasing what would continue the company in the seachange they created themselves.

Not sure how this differs from most other corporations in existence today

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[dgatwood]

Yeah. This article's analysis is WAY off. I still mostly take photos to remember important events, trips, etc. The images I post are mostly the sorts of things that this article describes (for identy and communication), but that's a tiny fraction of the photos I take.

I don't know what Kodak's problem is other than that they focused on the wrong consumers. Sure, a lot of people buy cheap consumer cameras, but the real profit margins are in the DSLR space, which Kodak never really touched. Instead, they built digital backs for film-based SLR cameras, under the assumption that people would want to update their current film cameras to be digital. The problems with this are twofold:

• They failed to anticipate that at some point, those pro photographers would decide that digital photos were good enough. Once this happened, there was no longer any reason to use film backs, which meant that there was no reason to use a bulky add-on digital back, either.
• Nikon and Canon were smart enough to maintain compatibility with their existing lenses, which meant that users could upgrade to pure-digital cameras very easily, and did.

Because Kodak did not anticipate this transition (and thus did not start making any DSLR cameras of their own), their only remaining sources of income were consumer-grade cameras and sale of image sensors to camera companies. By their very nature, however, consumer-grade cameras are low margin, and worse, their market got heavily cannibalized by camera phones, which seriously cut into those devices as a source of revenue.

This left image sensors. Thus, the only way for Kodak to stay afloat at that point was to continue to be at the forefront of image sensor technology. Unfortunately, the two main camera makers, Canon and Nikon, both build a lot of their own chips, and Sony and Foveon make great chips as well, which nearly eliminates the potential for image sensor sales except in their own cameras.

By the time all was said and done, their only way to make money was to compete in the compact camera market. Unfortunately, this market is almost purely feature-driven, which means that it demands ever-higher megapixel counts. Thus, they either had to buy chips from their competitors or keep up with them in their own image sensor designs. Worse, this meant supporting an image sensor division on sales of compact cameras—sales that were drying up.

At least that's my interpretation of things based on what I've seen/read. Kodak needed to have made a serious foray into the DSLR market instead of (or in addition to) being a temporary enabler for their competition. Had they done this, they would be right up there with Canon and Nikon in the DSLR space by now, and they wouldn't be bankrupt.

Let this be a warning to companies that ignore the pro market: you do so at your peril. The consumer market is great, but fickle. It can go away at a moment's notice, and when it does, if you don't have the loyal pro market, you're out of business.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[tlhIngan]

Aren't most displays still TN panels anyway with only 6 bit color? Granted I have noticed there seems to be a rise in the number of S-IPS and S-PVA monitors on the market so that trend appears that it may finally be changing.

Yes, most displays are TN.

PVA (and its variants) and IPS panels are the minotity - because people love getting the "free" monitor with their PC, or buying the sub-$200 ones.

You can find PVA and IPS panels in more premium monitors and TVs, but usually those aren't the ones costing under $200 on sale. They'll be in the larger ones (e.g., 30" non-1080p ones - the ones costing $1000+) because those can command a handy premium. The 1080p TVs of 30+" are probably cheap TN ones (30" Apple Cinemas run something like 2560x something or more).

It also applies to tablets as well - the Kindle Fire and Nook Color/Tablets use nice IPS screens, while the cheapass ones often use TNs. The more premium Androids and iPad do use nice IPS ones.

Laptops - it's a crapshoot. It's one of the few places where Apple still uses TN panels, and few use PVA or IPS.

You may be noticing that more people are advertising their screens as PVA or IPS though, usually in an effort to justify a higher price to hopefully draw you away from the TN screen on sale. Not that they aren't worth the extra cost, but they need something to give the best buy drone to spew.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital cameras _Always_ embed information about the camera into the exif data; a lot of people strip it out before uploading it, but most don't.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[The Grim Reefer]

If I recall correctly, in Kodak's case it was not that they became bloated and could not sustain themselves from profits, but that their new CEO kept doing a stock pump by selling off profitable divisions in order to make good quarterly numbers at the expense of recurring profits. So they had the classic 80s/90s 'short term profits give everyone huge bonuses, 5 years down the road does not matter' behavior.

I think Fuji film was the beginning of the end for Kodak. I remember when Fuji first started selling film in the US and quickly became the better choice for all but portrait photography. Kodak simply let that market go and it didn't seem like they put much effort into getting it back. It's my understanding that the original Fuji film was great for Asian portraits, but did not look so good for Caucasians. Once Fuji figured this out, they managed to basically take away Kodaks entire film market.

They were also too slow in moving into the digital market. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that they had some pretty nice digital prototypes that they chose to not pursue early on.

I don't know how many divisions they sold off, but I know that medical division, now called Carestream, is doing well as a stand alone company.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Creepy]

What I noticed is they failed to compete on both features and quality and were last to market with many of these. I remember a few years back purchasing a Canon Elph with optical image stability, 4 megapixels, and 3x optical zoom and Kodak's best camera at that size entry (I think it is ultra portable) at that time was digital image stability, digital zoom, and 3.2 megapixels. The Kodak was about $50 cheaper, but there were Olympus and Samsung in the same price range with similar features to the Canon but without optical image stability (the selling point for me - OIS is essential in a small camera), but otherwise matching features to the Canon. Also the rear LCD display of the Kodak was the worst of any there, both in size and quality (I think 2.4 inches and very grainy). I then read the reviews on various websites and the Kodak landed at or near the bottom in picture quality as well. If you offer the worst features and the worst quality you are pretty much doomed to fail without fixing some things, something I think Kodak has failed to do. For reference, Panasonic also landed near the bottom in picture quality that year, but their picture quality is among the best today, so it is not an insurmountable hole.

  I don't know how Kodak fares in the high end/high margin market because I can't really afford to be in that market myself - this is their Rebel SLR camera I believe. Usually when I hear of this market it is dominated by Nikon, Canon, and Sony (which snapped up Minolta's share when they bought their camera holdings after the Konica merger).

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[AJH16]

Thanks for the link. Also, I know that XML wasn't a popular format (if it was even used at all) when PSD was created, but it could have been replaced since then if there was a need for it. That said, I don't think their is and your link to the file format even further proves what I was trying to get at (that the file format is not a means of vendor lock in.)

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[AJH16]

Yeah, tablets is actually where I had seen it the most. I was surprised when I saw that my Asus Transformer (which I consider a fairly cheap tablet) had a S-IPS panel in it. I do a fair bit of video, photography and graphics design work and used to take flack for lugging my $150, 53 pound Viewsonic A90F+ CRT to conferences for the color accuracy. When it finally died an unfortunate death, I had to end up dropping $600 to get a 24 inch HP S-IPS screen with the same vertical resolution though. Apparently costs are coming down though. That same S-IPS panel is apparently now only $350 or so. Back when I got the HP, nobody bothered advertising what kind of panels were in monitors either so you had to go digging through websites that looked in to the panel suppliers to figure out what you were getting.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[jayrtfm]

wow... tech pan gone? that was the best for making slides from negs...

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Some include location information, which has surprised people.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Anonymous Coward]

Tech Pan was discontinued in the early 2000's, if I'm not mistaken. There's a new film that aims to replace TP currently being produced by Agfa-Gevaert and sold under the Rollei brand, it's called Rollei ATP1.1. It's also rebranded and sold as Argenti Nanotomic-X.

I have shot only a handful rolls of ATP1.1 and tried a few different developpers (Technidol, Rodinal stand) and liked the results, it makes some beautiful wet prints.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[operagost]

If only I had read your in-depth analysis before wasting my time on all the other useless comments! Clearly, I must have hallucinated about those Kodak digital cameras I was selling in the early 1990s. I'm sure it was that simple-- they must have been still making Instamatics and Brownies while their competitors were making buckets of dough off 100 Mpixel cameras.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[phorm]

Kodak DX6490. That was actually a decent camera (I still have it, and it still works).
I've taken some very nice pics with it, and it was durable.

Around that, I've had several other Kodak cameras. My biggest complaint was not image quality but durability. Camera in a gel case, in a bag, and one day stuff still breaks/stops working (usually the shutter gets stuck).

Switched to Canon - an SD780is for compact/convenience and a T2i for more professional stuff - and my cameras seem to last longer *AND* take decent pictures. For the "right here right now" the camera on my phone also done the trick in many cases.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Wandering Voice]

Yes! and you can even touch the colors, feel their textures, and taste their hue.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[mattcsn]

I'm sure the use of IPS in tablets has more to do with viewing angles and not color accuracy. If the companies making these tablets really gave a damn about mobile devices having accurate colors, they wouldn't use TNs in their $2000 macbook pros and macbook pro clones.

LG has started making a line of "budget" IPS displays. I picked up one of them last month for about $280 canadian, the S-IPS 23.6" IPS236V. It's very impressive for the price, and very good out-of-the-box, though it does benefit from additional calibration with a spyder or colormunki.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[AJH16]

I'll have to check that one out. I've been debating getting some more screens for my desktop now that I'm using a DisplayPort capable graphics card. Granted, if the IPS236V doesn't support displayPort then I'd probably just end up shelling out the little extra for more of my current HP ZR24Ws.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[AJH16]

Err, correction, my current monitor is an HP LP2475W.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Lunzo]

Cool story about Kodak's prototype digital cameras:

One of the Kodak digital prototypes was used to take a photo in Australia at the same location as the very first photo ever taken Australia in the 19th Century. The prototype digital camera came with a portable printer that printed the image. It was one of the few photos taken with that particular prototype as it was stolen soon after that.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[mattcsn]

My LG doesn't have displayport. It's possible to use a displayport->HDMI adaptor, but that can be flaky.

Another IPS possibility in the same price range with displayport is Dell's ultrasharp series. They seem to get get good reviews. I've never used one myself, though.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out the comment about the .psd format below, starts at line 107.

http://code.google.com/p/xee/source/browse/XeePhotoshopLoader.m?r=a70d7396356997114b548f4ab2cbd49badd7d285

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Phoghat]

From Wikipedia:

Since the late 1990s, Kodak has struggled financially as a result of the decline in sales of photographic film, and 2007 was the most recent year in which the company made a profit.

In the late 2000s, Kodak also turned to aggressive patent litigation in order to generate revenue. As of late-2011, Kodak was reportedly exploring the sale or licensing of its vast portfolio of patents in order to stave off bankruptcy but recent reports indicate that the situation is so grim that it may be unavoidable.

Sad when the maker of buggy whips sues maker of tires because of patent infringement. Sometimes they just can't change and need to get out of the way.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[graphius]

I agree with you up to a point. Kodak had a strong foothold in high end sensors. They produces sensors for medium format pro cameras (a step or two up from DSLRs and an order of magnitude more expensive) They produced sensors for medical and scientific imaging, but their brain dead management sold off their one division with potential...
I agree that putting their name on crappy consumer cameras was never a good idea. It killed their name.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[cavebison]

The main problem I see is that Kodak - a company that has, since film disappeared, been trying to make money from cameras - is up against companies that are hugely diversified, making money from all sorts of things other than cameras and so can compete more effectively.

There is a specialist camera market, but Kodak has failed to become a prime player there. Kodak used to be huge in movie production, but also failed to become a major player in digital film-making.

They've failed to be a significant maker of printers, faxes, or any other sorts of peripherals or gadgets. Companies like Canon, Panasonic, etc., who have fingers in a multitude of pies, can innovate and compete far more efficiently.

So Kodak ended up a one-trick pony struggling for relevance in a market that mostly doesn't give a frying pan about film quality anymore, just the number of pixels and gimmicks.

Even if it was about film quality, the other companies are still better placed to deliver specialised products. Kodak did not grow, so it got left behind.

Perhaps Kodak should have left the others to dine on the feature-hungry masses, and concentrated on high-end equipment for digital film production? I don't know, and it's very sad. But surely the writing was on the wall when cameras became low-cost, mass-market commodities that didn't need physical film anymore.

But we should never forget these companies on whose glorious ambitions and histories we have built... well, all this cheap, throw-away crap we have now.

Re:Poor analysis - its film not the camera itself

[Anonymous Coward]

I must have hallucinated about those Kodak digital cameras I was selling in the early 1990s

Those were crazy times, i think everyone was still dropping acid back then.

bad data source

[Lehk228]

flickr is a horrible source to do a study like this, it is going to bias towards 'real' cameras because it's more of a photography sharing site then it is a "drunken pics at the bar last night" site. mobile phones can upload photos straight to facebook and twitter

Re:bad data source

[cultiv8]

What Kodak shoulda done is patented their technology, that's how you create something and then not innovate but yet profit from it. *runs, ducks*

Re:bad data source

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Need to look at facebook, not flickr!

Re:bad data source

[phantomfive]

They did patent their technology, at least a lot of it. That only lasts 20 years though, so you can't be a troll forever.

Re:bad data source

[Anonymous Coward]

it's called "selection bias"

Re:bad data source

[spyder-implee]

My thoughts exactly! How the hell is flickr data useful unless you know what percentage of all photos taken are uploaded to flickr in the first place? If they actually *could* get that data, and it turned out to be something like 80%, well then that might be different. FTA: "(Admittedly, the number of images on Flickr is about 5% of that on Facebook. It would be interesting to repeat this analysis using Facebook data, but there is no reason to believe the results would be substantially different.)" BS article FTW!

Re:bad data source

[iamhassi]

flickr is a horrible source to do a study like this, it is going to bias towards 'real' cameras because it's more of a photography sharing site then it is a "drunken pics at the bar last night" site. mobile phones can upload photos straight to facebook and twitter

Exactly. Do you know how many photos I've taken in the past year? Thousands. Do you know how many ended up on flickr? 0. Facebook? Several hundred.

Same with everyone I know. Actually I don't know anyone that uses flickr except a few professional photographers, everyone else uploads their photos to facebook.

Re:bad data source

[SpazmodeusG]

They tried that. They are currently trying to sue Apple and RIM for over one beeeellion dollars. Sun also paid them some money to get the Kodak lawsuit company off their backs after Kodak claimed to own a patent covering a program that gets help from another program.

Re:bad data source

[rrohbeck]

Should've bribed more politicians so patents can get extended like copyright.

Re:bad data source

[Cimexus]

Very true, but I suspect Flickr was chosen because:

- Most Facebook users set privacy preferences up such that only friends can see their photos. Flickr on the other hand, being a 'photography sharing site' rather than something for personal images (as you rightly say), has mostly 'public' photos, accessible without even needing a Flickr account, that can be easily crawled and analysed. (You can make photos visible only to other Flickr friends, but by and large, people don't do this, as they aren't using it for private photos).

- Camera model is derived from EXIF data in image. Facebook uploading software (or maybe Facebook itself) generally strips out EXIF information from images. So despite the fact that Facebook offers many more images than Flickr, it is useless in any study of how much particular makes/models of camera are used. (Again, you can hide/strip EXIF data on Flickr as well, but a smaller proportion of people do this than you might think, and at least it's an option, unlike on FB where it's stripped no matter what)

Re:bad data source

[Cimexus]

True - far fewer use Flickr than Facebook. Having said that, I use Flickr for photos (despite being an avid Facebook user too), and so do most of my friends (in fact, they introduced me to Flickr originally). For me at least, it offers a number of advantages over FB:

- It's built for photos from the ground up, rather than being a social networking site that also happens to let you upload photos. So it has a lot of useful image-specific tools that Facebook doesn't. It also has some nice geotagging features, allows you to preserve/edit/view EXIF information, proper creative-commons-based image rights controls etc.

- Much simpler privacy controls. Basically, for each photo, it's either public (viewable at http://www.flickr.com/username by anyone - no Flickr account needed), or viewable only by Flickr friends. When sharing photos with friends and family (who may or may not have a Facebook account), it's simpler to say "go to this URL to see my photos", than it is to get them to sign up to Facebook, become my friend etc. (I know that can probably set up FB such that certain photos are visible to non-members while still hiding all the rest of my posts and information ... I haven't looked into it ... but FB's privacy controls are more complex and overkill for the task at hand. Flickr seems a simpler and more elegant solution.)

- It's not Facebook. While I'm not saying that I 'trust' Yahoo more than I do Facebook (or any other large corporation for that matter), it can't hurt not to have all my stuff in one place, right? If Facebook suddenly suffers a major security flaw, or decides to sell everyone's data or some other evil thing, at least they won't have my photos :) (Similarly, if Flickr goes bad, they have my photos, but not any other personal info that FB has).

- It was (and frankly, still is) a nicer site to use and navigate than FB. And it used to be kinda cool before Yahoo took it over... :(

Re:bad data source

[phantomfive]

It kind of makes you wonder why they haven't done that. Surely there is more money to be made from patents than from copyright.

Maybe it's been harder for them to make a case for extending patents? Since presumably if the owner of the patent hadn't invented the thing, someone else would have. It's a lot harder to make the case that if someone hadn't written a song or a book, that someone else would have.

Re:bad data source

[osu-neko]

flickr is a horrible source to do a study like this, it is going to bias towards 'real' cameras because it's more of a photography sharing site then it is a "drunken pics at the bar last night" site.

For the purposes of the point being made, that's precisely why flickr is the perfect site. Kodak's market never was the "drunken pics at the bar" market. Losing a market you never had to begin with has no impact on your bottom line.

Re:bad data source

[Sir_Sri]

and just because the last 3 or 4 years of Flickr has been populated with cameras but not camera phones doesn't mean the next 5 years will be.

I went on a business trip, with 2 days due to scheduling incompetence on our end that ended up as free time, + 1 extra day due to business issues. All I took was my Galaxy SII. It took some great photos (or at least, the camera worked, my own incompetence not withstanding). And it took a few videos that probably could have been better. It got the job done. I'm sure I could have carried another device, which would have been one more thing to risk losing, or breaking. My phone I needed anyway.

But If I did that 3 years ago, I would have still taken a camera, a digital camera, but a camera.

A cell phone will never replace a full blown camera completely, but at some point it becomes 'good enough' that you don't need all of the other stuff that makes it a camera, and it just runs as software on the portable computer, and the Camera becomes a specialized device. Kodak was the wrong company for dealing with that change. They were a chemicals company (Eastman is still a chemicals company), CCD's are semiconductor industry devices. Kodak would have been in serious trouble trying to get into that mass market without buying a semiconductor outfit, or merging with one. Everyone who is in the digital camera censor business is in it because they have a chip background. I cannot seriously envision a situation that could have lasted where Sony or Samsung would have continued to make cameras for Kodak but not on their own, which essentially what has happened with the cell phone (and camera's in cell phones business, between them and Apple, even Sony, who is still selling them cameras are publicly pondering why they are that stupid). Kodak got into the game late, and they've never been able to do anything but try and catch the leaders, and in the end you get left behind. All of the big camera makers are moving into other areas of electronics and Kodak doesn't have the skills or the resources to follow. While Sony and Samsung are integrating their camera technology into cell phone Kodak is trying to not go bankrupt.

They could have avoided this, if they'd jumped on CCD cameras as the future of the business in oh... 1996. They didn't. It has nothing to do with social, or the types of devices people want. Kodak is a chemicals company in a semiconductor business, and they didn't realize it until it was too late, and the semiconductor companies didn't need them anymore.

Re:bad data source

[sunspot42]

over one beeeellion dollars

That joke wasn't very funny when a painfully unfunny Canadian made it in a teeth grindingly unfunny movie 10+ years ago even though there it was at least in context. It hasn't matured with age to become funny since then.

Oh, behave!

Re:bad data source

[Anonymous Coward]

with all the bullshit comments that get posted here, you're gonna pick on that one? Fucking lighten up Hal...

Re:bad data source

[wvmarle]

It is probably because patents mostly work as intended: basically to promote the disclosure of trade secrets by giving a temporary monopoly in return (yes yes I know patent trolls are there as well and so, it's not perfect). As a result the companies benefit from both the issuing of patents, and the expiry of other companies' patents.

While issuing copyrights benefit the creators, but expiry of copyrights mainly benefits consumers. Media creators have generally very little benefit, if at all, from the expiry of other creator's copyrights, as there are plenty of ways that a creator can benefit from other people's works while under copyright: by getting inspiration, by parodying, etc.

Re:bad data source

[slugstone]

ok, where the car analogy on how disclosure of trade secrets helps a company?

Re:bad data source

[DarwinSurvivor]

Disney (one of the biggest copyright extension pushers) benefits GREATLY from all the expired copyrights on the stories they turned into massively profitable movies.

Re:bad data source

[wvmarle]

True. Saves them buying licenses to those stories. But they surely would also be profitable without those stories. The vast majority of their older work is original.

Yet they also own the rights to e.g. Winnie the Pooh (stories are afaik still under copyright). That's not their original creation, they bought the rights to the story, and are now profiting from it. They also have tons of original (self developed) characters.

Re:bad data source

[Threni]

> For me at least, it offers a number of advantages over FB:

Yeah, but getting back on topic - no-one uses Flickr so when studying why a company is failing, using a website no-one uses to support an argument is sort of a dead end.

Re:bad data source

[DarkOx]

No it's a good data source for that very reason. The people using those 'real' cameras are most likely the market segment that have been Kodak's traditional customers. We want to know have they have changed and what they do now. The photo market itself has grown and it may well be that Kodak has lost total share by not capturing the new market segments like mobile phone snap shots but that is a different question.

Re:bad data source

[silentcoder]

> The vast majority of their older work is original.

What ?!?!?!?!

The vast majority of their older work is - if anything- MORE public domain based than their newer work. Stories like The Lion King and Lilo and Stitch at least in theory were original (some serious doubts about the former exist) but their older movies - hell ANYTHING with "classic" in the title are all based on public domain works.
In fact no company in history has profited from the public domain as much as Disney - or spent as much to prevent ever having to contribute back to the pool from which they drew so much.

If your argument is that "earlier work" only refers to the short cartoons before Snow White then I suppose you're right - most of that was indeed original, but then there is a LOT less of that than most people think.
By the time of the Golden Age of Cartoons the Disney Corporation was barely even involved in the market anymore - several other companies owned the market, the biggest being MGM and Warner Brothers.

Re:bad data source

[Anonymous Coward]

I like photobucket. I like how I can just embed links in e-mails that will show the photos in the e-mail, referencing photobucket. It's just like inserting the photos in the e-mail body but without the size disadvantage. And it also lets me either require a password (which generally sucks as you force people to create accounts), or like google's let anybody with a direct link to the photo display it. I can still keep the album private, so only the photos I share with someone can be accessed by them. For me, it's the best photo/video sharing website.

Re:bad data source

[peragrin]

I have a kodak digital camera from 1997. it has a .9 mega pixel ccd.

it is also a crappy camera. Kodak was there. they just weren't leading the stuff and if your not leading then you have fallen behind.

Re:bad data source

[khr]

Everyone who is in the digital camera censor business is in it because they have a chip background.

I would've thought they were in the censor business more because they had a chip on their shoulder...

Re:bad data source

[Swampash]

"The vast majority of their older work is original."

AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA

AHa
AHAHA

wait - you were serious?

Re:bad data source

[Xolotl]

Actually Kodak do make their own chips, and have done so successfully for years: many cameras and webcams use Kodak-branded chips.

Kodak image sensor solutions

Where I think Kodak failed is packaging: Canon, Nikon etc. had vast experience and brand awareness packaging quality _cameras_, Sony the same but with video cameras. Kodak had comparatively little experience of that, except for a few point-and-shoot cameras mostly made as a vehicle for selling more film. Kodak was never going to win a camera mfg. war. They might be able (or might have been able) to hold their own in a sensor mfg. war if they'd played it right. Also, a lot of people do still want to print their pictures - that is, or was, another avenue for them.

Re:bad data source

[Anonymous Coward]

...and I bet they themselves keep it.

I don't trust Fuckerberg any further than I can kick him.

Re:bad data source

[sourcerror]

"The vast majority of their older work is original."

Like Snow White, Sleeping beauty, Aladdin and Pocahontas?

Re:bad data source

[Inda]

"All I took was my Galaxy SII"

My S2 is the best camera I've ever owned. It's perfect for the family shots. Uploading to my Google account is a killer feature (I know, I know, just another Android). Unless you are a pro or semi-pro, it's everything a camera should be.

Cheap point and clicks are dead for Joe Average.

Re:bad data source

[SoupGuru]

They are also your photos on Flickr. You pretty much sign your rights away to the photos you upload to Facebook.

Re:bad data source

[semi-extrinsic]

This used to be so, but is now (sadly) less true, and there is one reason for it: the "FULL HD" moniker. It is perhaps the best hardware spec for marketing purposes that you can put on a device - people go "Oooo, HD!". Thus every smartphone mfg puts a backlit CMOS in their camera, because it is fast enough (bus-speed-wise) to produce HD video (although pretty crappy HD video).

Therefore, sadly for you, actual image quality is orders of magnitude worse than e.g. the comparably sized 7 MP CCD sensor in my old Powershot A620. I have a picture hanging in my living room taken with that camera, which is printed at 28 x 21 inches. Can your SII pictures be printed that big? No chance in hell, and you can thank Samsung for that.

Re:bad data source

[Sir_Sri]

The best shots from my camera, outdoor shots of the Aran islands, are 3.6 MB, and 3264x2448. Considering my monitor is 1920x1200 (at 24 inches) I would say they would hold up very well at 28x21.

Though again, a true camera, by virtue of devoting the entire device's space to being a camera will always be superior to comparably priced phone. It's a matter of 'enough better' for it to be worth it.

Re:bad data source

[Stewie241]

I suppose the problem is that Facebook probably forces recoding of the image so the exif data is stripped. Flickr was probably one of few viable options for analyzing this kind of data.

Also, I would be surprised if you can't upload from a mobile right to Flickr also.

Re:bad data source

[jbengt]

From TFA, Flickr was chosen because someone else had gathered Flickr data to claim that camera phones were taking over from dedicated digital cameras. The author's interpretation of that same data was that, if relevant, it showed the opposite.

Re:bad data source

[Machtyn]

Frankly, I'm still waiting for a decent, cost-effective camera that has bluetooth or wifi technology for easy transfer to a server. Unfortunately, the only place to get that is with a smartphone or cellphone. Yes, I've seen DSLRs that have that tech - my kids got their picture taken with Santa on the horse drawn sleigh and the picture immediately sent to be "developed" and placed in a nice little card. But those are slightly more expensive than your regular user's point-n-shoot. The other problem, which my wife continuously points out to me, the digital camera is yet another device she has to lug around. The convenience of the camera on a phone (and our new Samsung GS2 is really nice) far outweighs the need to carry a normal camera.

Re:bad data source

[desdinova 216]

ba-dum-tish Be sure to tip your waitress...

Re:bad data source

[Anonymous Coward]

No they would not. Printing requires a resolution of at least 240 ppi to look decent. Also, the camera in your Galaxy S2 has a tiny sensor that performs like crap whenever you need to go high ISO. The lens is also a joke in low light situations. Is it convenient? Absolutely. But it cannot ever replace a real camera.

Re:bad data source

[Dahamma]

Completely true - Facebook (where I would guess 80%+ of the photos are from cameraphones) is rapidly making Flick as irrelevant as Kodak...

And that doesn't even include the fact that the claim no one uses cameraphones on Flickr is completely bogus anyway - Flickr actually says the iPhone has been the #1 camera on their site for a while now... http://www.flickr.com/cameras/

Re:bad data source

[Sir_Sri]

That would be a 33 (and a bit) megapixel camera to meet your benchmark of 'pixels per inch' at 240. Professional printing is 300 PPI, which would be 53 megapixels.

I hate to break it to you. But the difference between a 800 dollar phone, that squeezes a 70 dollar camera capability into it, and an 18000 (literally http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/mamiya-new-33-megapixel-camera-09-07-2010/) dollar camera is a completely absurd comparison.

At a 'good enough for my purposes' measure of 100ppi, an 8MP camera will hold up fine, even at 150 it's pretty close.

Don't get me wrong, optics plays a part - and a big part. There's no where to squeeze good lenses into a camera phone, so you get one, and hope it isn't horrible. But your censor simply is not producing the resolution you think it is. A 7MP camera is, at 28x21 inches is only producing an image of 109 PPI. You can do all the interpolation, anti-aliasing (re-sampling, broadly) etc. that you want, it's still not 240 PPI, it's about a fifth of that density (109^2 vs 240^2). The math isn't really complicated here.

The galaxy S II camera isn't the greatest cell phone camera ever made or anything of that sort, (probably the sony camera in the iPhone 4S gets that crown, but I could be wrong). Your A620 was a 350-400 USD camera, admittedly, 2005, vs a 2011 cell phone, but you're not going to match 200+ dollars in optics on a cell phone compared to a real camera.

Try a more sensible comparison, like a galaxy S II to a 100-130 dollar camera. The GSII is worse,but the 130 dollar camera still has much worse optics than your 2005 400 dollar phone, and again, it meets my benchmark of 'good enough for most purposes compared to a 100 dollar phone.

Re:bad data source

[Lehk228]

facebook would be just as bad in the other direction, phone integration makes it so easy to post cameraphone photos directly to facebook

Changing business

[sd4f]

If business was slowing down a lot, why weren't they sacking workers and reducing expenditure? I think this is more of a failure on management to restructure the company in a way that identifies that they can't really compete in the digital age how they once used to. I think that sometimes the management just have to realise that the company can't exist like it once did, and in order for the company to remain and still employ some people, they'll have to downsize a lot more than management might be comfortable about.

Re:Changing business

[Majik Sheff]

Up to and including... management. You can only fire your way into a positive quarterly report so many times before you run out of peons to pee on.

Re:Changing business

[Isaac-1]

Kodak's decline goes back 30 years or more, I personally think it began with their ill fated Kodamatic (Polaroid clone) and having to pull it from the market after loosing a major patent infringement case to Polaroid. Since then it has been one bad move after another, does anyone remember the much hypes Kodak disc camera? The only good thing they had going was their high end multi thousand dollar CCD imager division which they completely failed to convert to market dominance in the consumer digital camera revolution. Sure their were also many background failures like not keeping up with Fuji and others in the 1-hour photo market in an attempt to maintain their major mail out photo lab processing centers, etc.

Re:Changing business

[phantomfive]

They are filing for chapter 11 bankruptcy. That isn't going to shutdown the company. They are going to restructure it, hopefully in a way that will continue to let the company survive in the future, including doing things like downsizing.

Re:Changing business

[sd4f]

Management are probably the first that should go, but naturally, they're the ones in a cozy job, and it certainly wouldn't look good on their CV. I think failure to remain competitive and failure to innovate are the critical things, it's hard to manage something like that, but ultimately, that's why they're there, and that's why they get paid for it.

Re:Changing business

[hedwards]

Yeah, but I don't have much hope for them. They fought digital tooth and nail up until relatively recently. Do you happen to remember that film camera that they were trying to market a decade or so ago which showed a preview on an LCD on the back of the camera of what was on the film? It would have been both revolutionary and useful had they come up with it a decade or two earlier, but as it was it wasn't really useful and I think it failed pretty much immediately.

The painful thing for Kodak is that they had all sorts of useful patents and innovations related to digital photography they just haven't been able to figure out how to make use of them. At this point I think the horses are out of the bag and just spilled the milk.

Re:Changing business

[msobkow]

A decline from such heights doesn't happen overnight. It takes years of mismanagement, mistakes, failure to read the market, failure to adapt, and in this case, failure to realize that the entire market on which your business is based is going away.

I find it interesting that Fuji in Japan was a much more diverse company, and seems to be working on Thorium Molten Salt Reactor technology based on the PROVEN trials of the 1960s. That's a pretty radical leap from Fuji's "traditional" camera market.

A smart company invests their assets in developing new markets and new products, not tenaciously clinging to old and failing models until their last dying breath.

Re:Changing business

[eeek]

Just like SCO filing chapter 11? ;)

Re:Changing business

[syousef]

A decline from such heights doesn't happen overnight. It takes years of mismanagement, mistakes, failure to read the market, failure to adapt, and in this case, failure to realize that the entire market on which your business is based is going away.

Rubbish. A company, like a person, can be sunk by a single bad mistake. The miracle here is that they lasted so long - that's one heck of an asset base they had to chew through!

Re:Changing business

[WindBourne]

You mean like Kodak Chemicals? Or Kodak mining? Or Kodak printing? We could go on. Kodak actually had a number of subsidiaries that they owned. Sold them off. Big mistake.

Re:Changing business

[msobkow]

But that's the point, isn't it? They HAD the assets to work with to change the face of the company and leverage the brand to do something new. They wasted a LOT of years that have could have been spent on R&D and product development.

Re:Changing business

[msobkow]

Rather than saying a company can be sunk by a single bad decision, I'd say it's one specific TYPE of bad decision: hiring the wrong executive.

Look at NorTel in it's heyday. It was one of the top technology companies in the world; the patents sold in the bankruptcy are still very valuable.

But they brought in a hot-shot "save the company" American executive to run the place. He laid off THOUSANDS, and many thousands more who were good resources left of their own accord in addition before the axe could fall on them. The company never did recover from the devastation of those late-80s layoffs, and continued it's decline for years afterward.

But it wasn't a single bad decision in the sense of backing the wrong technology or the wrong business model. It was hiring a rapist to run the company.

Re:Changing business

[msobkow]

Yes, they made acquisitions and later sold them off. But what did they do that was NEW?

Re:Changing business

[phantomfive]

Just like SCO filing chapter 11? ;)

Yes, unfortunately. From SCO's official announcement:

Other companies such as Delta Airlines, Texaco, Dow Corning, K-Mart, United Airlines, Toys R’ Us, Macy’s Department Stores and others have emerged from Chapter 11 protection after restructuring themselves for success. We intend to do the same.

Re:Changing business

[WindBourne]

Actually, they built those up. Yes, they sold, foolishly, but they built up both mining and chemicals.

Re:Changing business

[msobkow]

Well, that's baffling. Why build up a new business and sell it off as soon as it's profitable enough to find a buyer? That's kind of a counter-intuitive way to build an empire, isn't it?

Re:Changing business

[AK Marc]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuji_Heavy_Industries
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujifilm

I think you are confusing the two unrelated Fujis.

Re:Changing business

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully?

Why exactly would one be hopeful that what is now an irrelevant company can turn itself around? Let it die and move on.

Re:Changing business

[Monoman]

A smart company invests their assets in developing new markets and new products, not tenaciously clinging to old and failing models until their last dying breath.

Of cashes out by selling everything off. Either way, the folks running the company clearly were not paying attention or in denial. Upper management never blames themselves for such catastrophes.

Re:Changing business

[jimicus]

If business was slowing down a lot, why weren't they sacking workers and reducing expenditure? I think this is more of a failure on management to restructure the company in a way that identifies that they can't really compete in the digital age how they once used to. I think that sometimes the management just have to realise that the company can't exist like it once did, and in order for the company to remain and still employ some people, they'll have to downsize a lot more than management might be comfortable about.

When you have a small company, it's pretty easy to do that. The CEO or someone very close to him visits the affected departments like the Angel of Death and when he leaves, staff levels have been cut by 40%.

When you have a huge multi-national, it's really hard. You've got a vast number of departments spread out in all sorts of locations, employment law varies between locations (meaning you may not be able to go in and sack everyone even if you wanted to) - and even the most efficient set of management accounts is lacking in some detail. So rather than visiting like some dark angel, you carry out a full review of operations to get an idea of what departments are contributing and what departments aren't.

Well and good, but the people directly below you didn't get that far by being stupid. They're pretty good at office politics themselves, they know which way the wind is blowing, they know what a full review of operations means, they've spent years building up their little empire. No way they're letting it go without a fight. So when the instruction comes down from on high, you can be more-or-less certain that the report that goes back will show their department to be the one thing that's keeping the company afloat. (This, BTW, is why it's quite common to hire in outside consultants or make big staffing changes at a senior level before doing these things...)

Not to mention that such a review works great if the problem can be neatly divided in departmental lines. If it can't - if instead all your teams are contributing but none are contributing anywhere near what they need to be to keep the company afloat - things now become a lot harder.

That's why when we hear of huge companies turning things around and improving their situation dramatically where before they looked doomed, it's really big news. IBM and Apple have done it, but as a rule it's pretty rare. It's rather more common for the numbers on the balance sheet to drop steadily over a period of time until they can no longer sustain the business - and when that happens, creditors get jumpy. Frequently they get so jumpy that there simply isn't time to go in and turn the business around, they've already asked a court to declare you bankrupt.

Re:Changing business

[Kjella]

Wait, are you saying the executive is what makes or breaks the company and is modded to +5? I thought the slashdot meme was that they were just the 1%ers raking in the millions for playing golf and being part of the old boys club, while the engineers do all the work. If they're actually important, paying to get a good one makes sense. Oh, you may still get a shyster at the CEO-level too, but if you pay peanuts then you'll definitively only get monkeys because the best people will go where they get paid well. But that super expensive CEO often isn't worth it, just like that super expensive contractor that's charging three times what everyone else does. Same game, just with a few more zeros to the paycheck...

Re:Changing business

[Seedy2]

Business students are likely the worst possible people to allow to run a business. The all seem to focus on short term gains and things to boost their resume so they can move on to another company and do the same thing there. No matter the short term gain turns to a short and/or long term loss after they've gone. Or you have the long timers who stay with one company and boost their own department at the expense of other departments in the same company, getting praise for their efforts while the company nosedives due to their effort.
Kodak failed because it had too many MBAs in positions of power, like any other parasite, they eventually kill the host.

Re:Changing business

[JasterBobaMereel]

A CEO can save or ruin a company, but a mediocre CEO can idle along at the head of a good company for years without having to worry

But a company without good employees is dead ...

Both are true,

Re:Changing business

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the horses are out of the bag and just spilled the milk.

That's either a really big bag or some really small horses. And what do the horses have to do with the milk? Also, just curious if you happen to keep your cats in stables.

Re:Changing business

[assertation]

Not to mention that in American corporations management earns the lion's share of the wages. Probably more effective to eliminate a few upper management slots.

Re:Changing business

[WindBourne]

MBA's. Once reagan allowed execs to own stock in the company, the fastest way for execs to make money is run up the company's stock value and then sell what they got. As such, companies are destroyed by execs owning stock. We have become a nation of short-term sight, rather than the long-term that we used to take. reagan did SO MUCH DAMAGE to America and it continues to this day.

This is why I keep saying that we need to drop allowing executives to own regular stock. Instead, they should own an employee stock or none at all. With the employee stock, it has no fluctuating value that can be manipulated. HOWEVER, when dividends are paid, they are paid to both regular stock and employees. With that approach, it encourages the long-term view of a company.

Re:Changing business

[Gilmoure]

Um... upper management success is what (modern) business is all about. It has nothing to do with thriving, providing jobs with upward mobility or helping out with the common good. It's all about me, me, ME!

Re:Changing business

[Gilmoure]

But, but... Reagan was a hero. He once jumped into a river and saved a guy's life once!

Re:Changing business

[Gilmoure]

Kumis? I think it's made in a bag.

Re:Changing business

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't say that the strategy of laying off thousands harmed them overall. It was the strategy of reporting earnings they haven't actually received before the dot-com bubble burst. You can claim that you made a sale, but putting it in the spreadsheet for the next quarter before you actually received the money is highly deceptive. When many of your customers are going bankrupt, those sales don't count for anything. Not to mention the back orders they were attempting to fulfill before actually receiving payment. Maybe our business model meme for profit can be modified for bankruptcy:

Step 1) Sell telecom hardware to multiple companies who have no actual revenue.
Step 2) Report sales as revenue before actually receiving payment.
Step 3) ???
Step 4) Bankruptcy.

Re:Changing business

[Anonymous Coward]

You are confusing Fujifilm with Fuji Heavy Industries, two very different companies.

Re:Changing business

[jayrtfm]

Biomedical. They used emulsion coating experience to make blood analyzing machines. division was sold. Polaroid did not do a similar deal with Technicon (once the market leader) and now both companies are barely there.

Re:Changing business

[phorm]

Steve Jobs vs Carly Fiorina

Like him or hate him, people like Steve Jobs do a lot in terms of putting a company in line with a profitable/salable "vision"

You still need good employees, but a good company head will find talent.

Of course they're dying

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's pretend the data is accurate and reliable. Kodak's core problem would remain the same: if you're business model is built on selling photographic film and paper, and people don't need that anymore, the company is going to fail.

Re:Of course they're dying

[luther349]

agreed they make awesome cameras and even printers that don't have expensive ink photo paper etc heck i even own all of those items but when do i ever use them yea that's a never.. when the last time you printed something or even upgraded your camera after 720p became standard in digital cameras.

Re:Of course they're dying

[osu-neko]

...if you're business model is built on selling photographic film and paper, and people don't need that anymore, and you don't change in any way, the company is going to fail.

ftfy

Many companies survive the complete evaporation of their original business model just fine. Did you know Berkshire Hathaway was originally a textile company?

Any company with the resources Kodak once had can survive any possible change in their market, regardless of their business model, as long as they aren't afraid to change. Companies fail when they're run by incompetent management, period.

Re:Of course they're dying

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure if Berkshire Hathaway is a good example, but your point is taken.

Berkshire Hathaway was a failing textile company that Buffet thought he could profit from while running his hedge fund.

Read more here: http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post.aspx?post=89b6d48e-6e0d-4131-a5d2-4b91f18feefa&_blg=207

Re:Of course they're dying

[Anonymous Coward]

People no longer need to have prints that lasts generation. If they do print, it only needs to last a minute. The Flickr or any sharing sites indicate we share electronically, not by paying for prints.

Re:Of course they're dying

[PuddleBoy]

I think that being a publicly-traded company also hemmed them in.

One (unlikely) path would have been to decide to become a niche player in much smaller markets. Film and paper are NOT going away entirely - there have been other companies (Ilford/Harmon, Fuji, Foma) that have offered (and continue to offer) competition in the film space. But Kodak is big, and shareholders are not going to respond well to being told that management believes there is a niche market in which Kodak could continue for years, albeit as a much smaller company with much smaller value. (Kodak has some of the best film manufacturing technology, equipment and expertise in the world, all but the ongoing labor already paid for)

The 'needs' of shareholders force corp management in some directions, which may have short-term but not long-term benefit. Jobs was able to turn Apple around because he could bully everyone - if management had listened to shareholders, would Apple have survived?

Re:Of course they're dying

[clodney]

Many companies survive the complete evaporation of their original business model just fine. Did you know Berkshire Hathaway was originally a textile company?

Any company with the resources Kodak once had can survive any possible change in their market, regardless of their business model, as long as they aren't afraid to change. Companies fail when they're run by incompetent management, period.

If only it were that simple. The big problem is deciding what to change into. A company in a declining market may have a very profitable, cash cow business. They can use that money to fund the search for a new business model. But a company with a huge investment/infrastructure/employee base in business X may not even recognize an opportunity in business Y, and even with the cash available, may not be a competent competitor in business Y even if they decide to pursue it.

Should Kodak have gone into search engines in competition with Google? Or closer to home, given their association with the movies, maybe create a special effects studio? Or maybe create software to edit images like Photoshop? Is there any reason to think that they would have succeeded at any of those ventures?

Having cash and recognition that your business is declining is not enough. The real rub is finding something else that you can succeed at. And I don't think there is any obvious way to go about that.

Re:Of course they're dying

[Gilmoure]

Just bought our first photo-printer this weekend (Epson 330NX for $69). Daughter's taking a photography course in 4H. Also picked up a Canon Powershot that can do manual settings and such. Now, the paper and ink for the epson cost more than the printer but it's quality is pretty good. For a kid who's grown up in a digital world, she's pretty psyched printing out 5x7's and framing them, just like I thought it was so cool to take a picture with the Apple QuickTake 100 (Kinkos early 90's) and seeing it show up on my computer without having to scan it in.

Re:Of course they're dying

[jayrtfm]

>>>Or closer to home, given their association with the movies, maybe create a special effects studio? Or maybe create software to edit images like Photoshop? Is there any reason to think that they would have succeeded at any of those ventures?

They basically did, and did not succeed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cineon

kodak cameras aren't bad

[Anonymous Coward]

I have worked with a few cheap digital kodak cameras at work around 2003-2004, and I loved them. They were so easy to use and you could understand all the features without reading the manual. If you have used panasonic, you would know how complicated they are to understand and use. Kodak on the other hand made it really simple and the pics are not bad. Exactly what an average user would expect (atleast I think so).

But which camera do I buy? Canon, almost everyone who don't know much about cameras buy a canon and I did too.

The panasonic that I also purchased just gave crappy photos, full of noise. Maybe I didn't know how to tune it, but hell, I just want to turn on a device and take photos and make it look decent enough without having to "correct" them on a computer. Canons are good at that, but I think kodaks were better and much cheaper.

Maybe I should have bought them, but the price was so cheap that I thought they weren't as good as I thought them to be.
Ah well, atleast I spent a lot of money on kodak reels before the going digital.

Sayonara kodak,

The article is weak

[gzipped_tar]

It first tried to rebuke the claims of Kodak being not able to innovate, etc, and then discussed "how people today use photos" in the examples of Flickr, Facebook, and such. It concluded with the weak argument of essentially one sentence, that "[It] is hard to see a role for Kodak in all of this." The problem with this reasoning is that exactly the same thing can be said about many of Kodak's competitors. I'm not aware whether Nikon or Canon is doing significantly better in this regard, which is to ease the "sharing and distribution" of photos through the Internet and social networking.

Re:The article is weak

[jaymz666]

Are Nikon and Canon their competitors, or perhaps fujifilm and agfa? Where are they these days?
Polaroid as well.

Re:The article is weak

[hedwards]

Actually, Kodak had no problems innovating, they did however have tons of problems getting any of it to market in a way that consumers would accept. I remember a very innovative flop from them a decade back. Basically a digital camera/film hybrid which would give a preview of what was on the film at the time you took the image without developing the film.

The thing that really cost them was the time that they spent burying their digital innovations to protect their film business. I doubt very much that they would be in the state they are today if they had accepted that digital was the way of the future and looked for ways to use the digital innovations to power their future growth rather than looking for ways to protect their film business.

Nikon and Canon don't really have to do much because they both have technology for plugging the camera directly into a printer and most people with cameras are able to figure out how to change memory cards. Anybody that could change film can change a memory card, it's just that much easier.

Additionally neither Nikon nor Canon was ever drawing money on film, the technology that they're working with hasn't changed that much since the first auto focus systems went into development. Probably one of the reasons why Canon's first foray into consumer digital photography with the s10 went so well.

Re:The article is weak

[c0lo]

Agfa - doing fine in B2B - they managed to jettison their consumer film division quite a while ago.

However, in 2004, the consumer imaging division was sold to a company founded via management buyout. AgfaPhoto GmbH, as the new company was called, filed for bankruptcy after just one year

FujiFilm - switched to digital faster than Kodak (FinePix consumer cameras), diversified in other areas and is still getting 3% of their sale from film (most probable medical imaging).

Re:The article is weak

[governorx]

Agreed, had a look the article and it failed to provide any of the following supportive arguments and evidence:

1) Pictures taken with Kodak cameras cannot be shared.
- I know this is not a fact. I get pictures all the time from my parents that use Kodak and their crapware EasyShare software.
2) Really I have more, but point 1 discredits the entire article.

Re:The article is weak

[wvmarle]

Nikon and Canon are hardware manufacturers. Nikon's Nikkor lens technology was very popular among photographers (possibly still is - it's been a while I was active in photography), and for a lens it basically doesn't matter whether there's a CCD or a chemical film behind. A relatively easy transition as it "just" requires changes to the body of the camera. The optics are the hardest part of the camera to get right, and still are what make a good camera expensive. Those parts also won't come down in price like electronic parts do.

Kodak was known primarily for it's film and related products. That of course is not an easy transition to digital as it negates the need for film. It's hard for a company to do away with their core business voluntarily.

Fuji I also know for it's film, but indeed they (like many Japanese companies) were very broad based. And then picking up electronics production as needed to make their snapshot cameras like FinePix is also a less big transition.

Re:The article is weak

[AK Marc]

and is still getting 3% of their sale from film (most probable medical imaging).

And movie film. Despite the recent push for "shot in 3D - all digital" movies, most are still shot on film. And Fujifilm still makes movie film.

Re:The article is weak

[Anonymous Coward]

Most movie film stock comes from Kodak. That's why Kodak after the restructuring will probably become an all film company, like Ilford.

Re:The article is weak

[AK Marc]

I can't believe that's true. The execs sold off every profitable part of the business in an attempt to prop up the "core business" of losing money. If they still had a profitable business unit, why hadn't they already spun that off and sold it to delay the inevitable corporate failure?

Re:The article is weak

[Dahamma]

Kodak was known primarily for it's film and related products. That of course is not an easy transition to digital as it negates the need for film. It's hard for a company to do away with their core business voluntarily.

Actually, up to 1976 Kodak was still selling over 80% of camera hardware in the US (and an almost complete monopoly on film). Canon and Nikon were fairly high end prosumer brands at that time.

The problem was that they sold a lot of cheap cameras and made most of their profits on film (the razor/printer/etc strategy). That model completely fell apart on *both* the hardware and the film sides with the advent of digital photography...

Re:The article is weak

[polymeris]

Kodak was known primarily for it's film and related products. That of course is not an easy transition to digital as it negates the need for film. It's hard for a company to do away with their core business voluntarily.

Even so, they make (or just design?) the sensors for some of the most expensive cameras out there. Perhaps if they had managed to get their name associated with those brands, their low-level stuff would have sold better.

Re:The article is weak

[wvmarle]

1976 is well before the era of the digital camera which started only just over a decade ago. If they lost all that market share between 1976 and mid 1990s then that was not due to the change to digital.

Re:The article is weak

[Dahamma]

Actually, in the mid 1990's Kodak was still reasonably profitable and still had an 80% share of film (in the US - Fuji pretty much owned Japan), 70%+ share of disposable cameras (a big business for them in the 90's) and the largest share (but declining) of camera hardware sales.

They lost all three of those businesses due to digital (film because it became mostly obsolete, disposable cameras because digitals are reusable, and the cheap point and shoot camera market because the advantages of digital cameras justified a higher price. And then Canon, Sony, and Nikon entered this new market with some very solid, reasonably priced entries...

Software

[Anonymous Coward]

I always hated helping someone get their pictures off a Kodak digital camera.
Why Kodak could not use the standard USB mass storage device is beyond me.

Re:Software

[Pentium100]

Probably because they thought proprietary was better. Another example would be Sony Hi-MD recorders. The one I have (MZ-RH1) can be used as a mass storage device (if the disc is in Hi-MD format) and can play mp3 files and yet, if I want to transfer a mp3 file to it, I have to use Sonic Stage. Why?

AFAIK (I do not have it), the Apple iPod is the same, as you have to use iTunes to copy music to it, even though it can be used as a mass storage device for other files.

Oh, and for both devices, there is no Linux version of that software, or even a portable one (so I could just plug it in a PC, start the software and transfer the music without installing any software). If this is done for copyright protection, then it does not work, as I can still copy the files, I just then have to go home to copy them to my PC then back on the disc so I can play them on the MD recorder.

Re:Software

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

For the iPod I think it's to build the library metadata files.

I'd rather not have to be OCD and manage my library manually.

Re:Software

[mordenkhai]

You can, its how I get all of my wife's photos off her Kodak Camera. I just tell the Easyshare software to die in a fire and goto My Computer and browse to the camera from there.

Re:Software

[perryizgr8]

other music players build the library metadata on their own quite nicely.

Re:Software

[jimicus]

For the iPod I think it's to build the library metadata files.

That's exactly what it is. You can use the iPod from Linux - but because support has been reverse engineered, you may occasionally get things that don't quite work as intended, and it's usually not a good idea to buy the latest, just-released-last-week model.

Re:Software

[swalve]

Huh? They have been doing it that way for at least 5 years. Probably more, but that's the limit of my experience.

Re:Software

[PPH]

the Apple iPod is the same, as you have to use iTunes to copy music to it,

Huh? There's gtkpod, and a few others for Linux support.

Back to the original topic, there is gPhoto, which handles numerous digital camera transfer protocols other than the mountable file system paradigm. This includes quite a few Kodak models.

Litigation over innovation

[Anonymous Coward]

Kodak has lost money each year but one since Mr. Perez, who previously headed the printer business at Hewlett-Packard Co., took over in 2005. The company's problems came to a head in 2011, as Mr. Perez's strategy of using patent lawsuits and licensing deals to raise cash ran dry.
 
  Perez chose litigation over innovation; failure was inevitable and deserved.

Re:Litigation over innovation

[swalve]

Was he the guy at HP that turned their printers into garbage?

Classic disruptive techonology problem

[robla]

Even though Kodak saw digital photography coming, the problem was Kodak's whole financial structure was tied to film, and digital technology was disruptive technology. They might have been able to sustain the brand by merging with or buying the right company at the right time (e.g. Canon), but most companies have a hard time dealing with technology shifts that vaporize their main profit center. It's not as simple as just knowing what the next trend is; it's figuring out how to gracefully wind down the existing cash cow while giving the new technology the management attention and resources it needs to thrive. Even then, there still ends up being a lot of pain because you can just put all of the same people you had producing film to work in a digital camera business.

Re:Classic disruptive techonology problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Still Canon makes a load of cash with their thermal photo printers. Kodak jumped on the bandwagon way to late.

wrong comps

[Anonymous Coward]

Kodak didn't lose to new cameras or phones. They were a write-once read many storage device manufacturer (based on weird chemicals) which lost out to ccds, hard drives and NAND memory once they became affordable. Nothing they made or did gave them an advantage in the digital image capture or storage world. There is no reason for them toexist except for nostalgists and nostalgia.

Re:wrong comps

[Pentium100]

As far as I understand, film still has its use - in very low temperatures (say, -30C), CCDs do not work as well as film. I am sure that there are special cameras with heated CCDs, but they would cost a lot, where film can be used with a (relatively) cheap camera.

Re:wrong comps

[Animats]

As far as I understand, film still has its use - in very low temperatures (say, -30C), CCDs do not work as well as film. I am sure that there are special cameras with heated CCDs, but they would cost a lot, where film can be used with a (relatively) cheap camera.

Actually, that's backwards. At low temperatures, photographic film becomes brittle and must be heated. On the other hand, CCDs have less noise at lower temperatures. Astronomers use cooled CCDs extensively. IR cameras often have cooled CCDs; if you want to image heat, you want as little extraneous heat as possible at the imager.

Re:wrong comps

[Anonymous Coward]

heated CCDs

Ahahahaha :D
Ahhh... ...it seems you just earned yourself the Ig Nobel Prize for Imaging Noise.

Re:wrong comps

[Pentium100]

From the site you linked to:

For example, the Operating Environment stated for the Nikon Coolpix 990 is:

        * Temperature: 0 ï½ 40oC (32 ï½ 104oF)

So, no photos at -30C? A machanical film camera works at -30, I don't know about the electronic film cameras (you know, the ones that have autofocus etc).

Also, I am not talking about special cameras (which cost a lot), but about the normal ones, like a regular dSLR.

Re:wrong comps

[atomicthumbs]

It's also useful for anyone who wants a sensor area larger than 35mm without paying thousands and thousands of dollars.

Re:wrong comps

[Carnildo]

The sensor works just fine at -30C. It's the other bits (say, the lubrication of the shutter mechanism, or the batteries) that don't. There's also the matter of technical and warranty support -- it's cheaper to say "we don't support the use of this camera in sub-freezing temperatures" than it is to design the camera to deal with condensation, non-lubricating lubricants, under-powered batteries, and the other problems you encounter at low temperatures.

The batteries in particular are a problem. Photographers working in low temperatures usually carry two or three sets of batteries: one set cooling down in the camera, the others being warmed back up by body heat, and the batteries get changed every 15-30 minutes depending on how cold it is.

Eastman Kodak started as a chemical company

[Anonymous Coward]

Eastman Kodak started as a chemical company (or one acquired the other - I'm too lazy to Wikipedia it right now). However you slice it, they have always been a *film* company. Kodak's entire raison d'etre fell through with the advent of digital and they held fast too long to their core - fim processing chemicals - and didn't invest properly in other aspects of pictures. Sure, they had a digital camera, but they sucked :)

The name had something to do with its failure too!

[bogaboga]

I mean, just mention "Kodak", the go ahead and mention "Canon" or "Samsung" or "Casio" or "Sony" or "Nikon", then compare all those entities to see which one has the so called "swag". I doubt Kodak would come close.

To me, (and I am a bit old fashioned btw), Kodak and businesses I will not mention here, represent the past. The name simply does not sell these days. It's a bit like Microsoft. Their names are "tired" for lack of a better word. Not that they do not produce good stuff, but they've been around for so long without any real innovation.

Other companies can boast of a host of publicly known innovations by the most important demographic - the teens and young adults.

I remember just 6 years ago

[tbird81]

Someone I knew uploaded their photos to the Kodak site for printing, and had deleted them from her camera.

Rather than making it easy to get a copy of these photos, it was impossible. I think you basically had to order a PhotoCD or something, which I wasn't going to do.

They could have made a proper website to allow people to share their photos and print them. But they made it annoying.

Re:I remember just 6 years ago

[Skapare]

Harvard MBAs. Whaddya expect?

Article lost me...

[Lordfly]

at this: "It would be interesting to repeat this analysis using Facebook data, but there is no reason to believe the results would be substantially different."

Yes, because the millions of smartphones out there with a camera and a Facebook app (as opposed to a flickr app) aren't going to skew the results at all.

Flickr is for people who like photography; ergo, the data is going to be skewed heavily towards actual cameras.

Facebook is for people sharing themselves with their friends and the world. One only has to peruse a random person's Facebook profile picture page to find hundreds of self-snaps taken in the bathroom, or at the pub, or on a train, or whatever.

Kodak, in my opinion, failed because they neglected to make quality products in their particular niche (easy to use, inexpensive, easy to share). They offshored their production, so Kodak cameras were notoriously hit-or-miss in regards to actually working right. They missed the highend market (then again Kodak was never known for that anyway), letting Sony, Pentax, Canon, and Nikon beat them there. They failed to leverage their gigantic photo paper experience into anything worthwhile (I own a Kodak printer that, as I type this, refuses to print due to some bizarre error I don't have time to diagnose).

In short, Kodak failed because Kodak fucked up. Photography isn't going anywhere. Hell, film photography isn't going anywhere. Kodak just stood still and let the world pass them by.

They took our Kodachrome away, and nobody cared.

Re:Article lost me...

[hedwards]

I hate to break it to you, but film photography is on the way out. It will linger on for a while, but it just doesn't bring anything particularly compelling to the party. Even pros are going digital for the increased control and consistency that can be had from it.

I do like slide film and the various options that Fuji provides, but the fact of the matter is that there's just so little to be gained by maintaining an archaic technology that's past its prime. What's more printers and the related technology has resulted in some pretty amazing prints with relatively minimal effort.

Re:Article lost me...

[Isaac-1]

My personal guess is film will be dead, or at least relegated to the realms of artist and art students within the next decade, higher end digital imagers are now almost to the point of exceeding the capabilities of film in every aspect of photography, it is just a matter of time for Moore's law to do its thing before the capabilities of these $8,000+ cameras are seen in the $400 - $800 semi-serious cameras.

Re:Article lost me...

[jimicus]

My personal guess is film will be dead, or at least relegated to the realms of artist and art students within the next decade

It more-or-less is already.

The majority of pro photographers, AFAICT, are reasonably pragmatic - yes they know that 35mm film has enormous theoretical resolution - but they don't need it. They need resolution that's at least as good as their lenses (which digital hit some time ago), acceptable when printed at the size they're likely to print at (seldom much bigger than 24x36") from normal viewing distances. In other words, on those rare occasions you are asked to photograph something that's going to be printed on an advertising billboard, the question isn't "can you see the blockiness from a foot away?", it's "can you see the blockiness from 20 or 30 feet away?". As long as the alternative to film can do all that - something that digital reached years ago - the only remaining question is "is there any benefit using this over traditional film?".

To which the answer is "yes because you don't have to get anything developed and you can easily switch film speeds between individual frames." Everything else - like being able to easily order fancy products like photo books from some specialist supplier halfway around the world without having to either risk the original negs/slides or mess around copying them - is just icing on the cake.

Re:Article lost me...

[Anonymous Coward]

35mm doesn't have "enormous theoretical resolution", any current APS-C sensor will produce a better image than even a professional (wet) drum-scanned negative, and has for a few years now. 135 film format is considered small, bear that in mind. For years and years photographers scoffed at 35mm shooters because they saw 35mm cameras as toys, and 135 film as adequate only for holiday snaps or whatever.

What digital can't touch as of right now is medium or large format negatives. A good scan from 6x6 slide film will put pretty much any sensor to shame, no matter what brand, make or format. A good scan from a 4x5 negative is country miles ahead of what digital can do. Even an 80 megapixel Leaf or PhaseOne digital back (that costs something like $35K or $40K) doesn't come close.

Re:Article lost me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yah, totally... just like the film camera eliminated the need for artists... I mean, who commisions a painting... oh, wait... as a professional photographer film does bring something to the table, uniqueness.... if thats a word.... When I sell a print, some customers what possesion of the photo-negative.. they want it, because they want to know they will be in control of that image in perpetuity... somehow a RAW file doesnt cut it for them.. Don't get me wrong, I shoot almost exclusively in digital, and film sales will continue to dwindle... but it wont ever go away, it will just be used by us pros, and at a premium... I was worried my business would suffer from the fact that every phone has a camera on it, I found it was just the opposite... after seeing so many shitty photos, people hire me for a good one... no one wants to look through an album of duck-lipped mirror shots in 20 years..

Re:Article lost me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Incorrect. Film may be going away for 35mm, but it's still vital for medium format and large format (where your real multi-10s of thousand dollar landscape pictures are made and sold) cameras

It's all about the ability to scale before noise sets in.

Re:Article lost me...

[Anonymous Coward]

ACTUALLY ... film is still competitive when you add the cost of ink, new printers when old ones wear out, computer hardware/software/spare hard drives, blank dvd's...etc. Now the average joe is better with printing digital at Walmart. But for art and a lot of pro work, film is still great and many CORPORATE clients still request it for the 'look' that many people are too young to figure out to reproduce in digital. Also FUJI just made a NEW medium format film cameras, and Mamiya and Haselbald are still designing new film equipment.

Re:Article lost me...

[slim]

It's not only about resolution. Film also has *massive* exposure latitude. That means it's very forgiving of over/under exposure. It also means you can capture "HDR" without making multiple exposures.

I don't know whether high end CCDs are approaching the exposure latitude of film. Consumer CCDs certainly don't.

Re:Article lost me...

[hedwards]

That's a completely different thing altogether. Film slaughtered the portrait market as previous to film if you wanted your likeness recorded you had only a few options, painting, drawing or sculpture. What's more those could easily coexist with whatever came afterward.

Re:Article lost me...

[hedwards]

Yeah, but for how much longer? It's more challenging to create a medium or large format sensor, but it's not like the manufacturers are ignoring that market. They'll get it and when they do few people are going to want to do work in large format. I mean, it's extremely expensive to take large format photos, whereas I generally consider my equipment paid for at a rate of $1 per shot, you're taking about hundreds of dollars per shot with large format pictures.

Re:Article lost me...

[hedwards]

Of course they are sitll designing new medium format film cameras, but that's purely because the technology hasn't yet allowed for a proper full frame replacement of medium or large format cameras. That day is coming and I see no particular reason to believe that it won't come.

I've seen prints with modern equipment and they blow away pretty much anything that I ever saw previously. And there are professional printing services if you can't yourself be bothered to print them. What you seem to greatly underestimate is the cost of developing your own film. Black and white isn't so bad to do yourself, but it's really, really expensive to do your own color photos at home.

Re:Article lost me...

[jimicus]

Good point - but many pros were using slide film for years, and that has similarly poor exposure latitude.

Re:Article lost me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Kodak was among the FIRST companies to leverage photo sharing. EasyShare was around with a one-button share via email before the competition even existed. What Kodak lacked was any kind of follow through. Their first product in a new market would often be their last. Ofoto never developed the features of shutterfly or snapfish. Hell, you couldn't even get borderless prints. EasyShare never gained the ability to post to social media sites (which would have been Friendster and MySpace at the time). Support for their photo printers was so bad, Ofoto never bothered to switch out the Fuji printers they used.

In short, Kodak switched from long-term vision to short-term gimmicks, their CEOs cashed out with bonuses, and left a looted rotting shell behind. In short, a quintessentially American company.

No real conclusion

[Dan East]

The article doesn't make much sense. It talks about "frictionless photo sharing" and how Kodak has totally missed it in that area, and how camera phones can share photographs via Facebook seamlessly with little effort. But then it shows Flickr stats asserting that Kodak isn't actually competing against camera phones, but other dedicated camera makers like Canon, Nikon, etc. So in what way is Canon and Nikon integrating with FB, or otherwise "getting it", where Kodak isn't? I've owned a couple modern Canon cameras, and they just throw pics onto an SD card like Kodak does, so Canon's success has nothing to do with beating Kodak in the way the article claims Kodak has failed. That's the real question - why did Canon and Nikon trounce Kodak when it comes to digital cameras?

Simply put, the article is talking about two different things, and doesn't correlate the cause and affect between them at all.

Re:No real conclusion

[The Dancing Panda]

I just bought my girlfriend a dedicated Samsung camera that will connect to Facebook/Twitter/Email/Whatever via WiFi and upload directly from the camera. It is honestly a pretty sweet feature.

Re:No real conclusion

[glodime]

Sorry. I just used my mod points.

I also think that the author fails to recognize that Chapter 11 is used as a strategy for changing the company while preserving upper management.

Doubtful

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who knows a bit about digital photography I do believe it has everything to do with Kodak's camera product lineup. Kodak made no serious effort in high end photography, and being a typical American company they bungled what they did do, then gave up. They wanted to keep on producing cheap cameras like they had always done. But this was disrupted by two factors; along came cameraphones and knocked the low end down, and the march of technology have made the low end camera so cheap that there are no margins in them. Additionally, for a brand to have the prestige to sell a low end product, it must have a high end and upper mid-end product; Canon has dSLRs, Kodak had film... but now it doesn't.

The only way to make real money out of digital cameras is to produce high end cameras. By the time Kodak would've realised that they would have both lost the money and talent to get back into that game like Fujifilm has.

Re:Doubtful

[Brett Buck]

Kodak is/was definitely a player in the high-end market. Their sensors are used in the current top-end Leica (M9 and S-series) and are the best available.

      There's an aspect to this story that no one is considering - contracts with (or loss of) governmental customers for exceptionally high-quality film. There's a reason you can't get Tech Pan any more and it's not because they forgot how to make it.

Re:Doubtful

[Anonymous Coward]

and being a typical American company they bungled what they did do, then gave up.

Excuse me? Ignoring the blatant ignorant false generalization, a company that files chapter 11 after over 120 years in business cannot be described as "bungling, then giving up." If that's a "typical American company," there wouldn't be any other kind of companies left in the world by now.

Re:Doubtful

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, what hapened to Kodak has happened in one American industry after another. Mismanage, downsize, outsource.

Re:Doubtful

[Anonymous Coward]

Kodak is/was definitely a player in the high-end market.

They were a player in the dSLR market during the early days but they were too half hearted to keep on trying after their first major bungle and pulled out, betting the farm on low end digicams and printing instead.

Their sensors are used in the current top-end Leica (M9 and S-series) and are the best available.

Alas, they are not in a Kodak large-sensor camera, which is kind of the point (also, Leica sells very low volume). Sensors have almost zero impact on the public's brand awareness, unlike that fancy dSLR uncle Bob bought.

Re:Doubtful

[Waccoon]

Around 2003, I used to work in a small photo store, and we had a Noritsu optical photo printer hooked up to a WinNT4 workstation running Kodak DLS MiniLab software. From the ground up, it was designed for totally digital workflow, so processing orders from floppy disks and CDs was common, as was saving orders to NAS.

It was buggy as hell, the GUI frequently drew garbage and tears, it wouldn't run on Win2K so we couldn't use a lot of card readers or USB anything, it crashed several times a day, and the database would just stop working for no reason which required frequent restarts and losing orders. The system was supposed to be all digital, but any orders we loaded from customer media always printed yellow and washed out, and any color adjustments resulted in horrible banding and color shifts. It was a total black box system, and I couldn't even tell what colorspace the machine was using to process images. JPEG files with embedded color profiles either showed up totally black, or in some cases would cause the system to crash. I eventually developed a system of filtering all customer orders through Irfanview to weed out color profiles the DLS software couldn't handle, to make sure we could actually print on a 1-hour schedule without fear the system would collapse. Just about everything crashed that software, and the CD burner would frequently make coasters -- a big deal when Kodak was charging several dollars for their PhotoCDs (the system would write to blank CDs, thankfully).

Photos scanned on the Kodak PictureMaker kiosk (running a SparcStation III which took over 15 minutes just to boot up), would take about 10 minutes just to network the final images to the DLS software, even though it took half as long for the Noritsu printer to spit them out. Don't even get me started about the greeting card templates, where more than 150K of XML was required just to define a canvas and a transparency mask to make bordered cards.

Naturally, proprietary file formats were used for everything, so it was impossible to access customer orders directly through the NAS. You had to use special client software to connect to the DLS system, search for the order strictly by customer number (not order number), retrieve thumbnails of the orders one at a time until you haphazardly discovered the actual order you wanted, retrieve the high-resolution image for the whole order, and then you could actually save the images to a disk. This procedure could take 3-4 minutes if you were lucky, more than 15 if you weren't. The Image Extractor client was about the only thing in the whole setup that ran on Win2K, so that was what we used to write orders to USB thumb drives. The DLS system itself required a horrifically expensive multi card reader connected via SCSI.

If there was anything that shattered my impression of Kodak, it was their "high-end" software. Kodak did a horrible job adapting to the digital market.

Re:Doubtful

[Anonymous Coward]

No they're not (the best available, that is).

Actually, it's quite the opposite, the sensor in the Leica M9 is shite, compared to Sony (Nikon) and Canon full frame sensors.

Any current Canon or Nikon full frame bodies will destroy the Leica M9 in low light performance, dynamic range, color rendition.

Have a 3-way shootout, side by side, of a Leica M9, a Canon 5D mkII and a Nikon D700. The Leica will come out behind every single time.

There was a time when Leica meant quality and professional photography. Those days are behind us, now they're just pandering to nostalgia afflicted old timers, people with more money than photographic knowledge and people that like to show off their wealth.

Re:Doubtful

[Anonymous Coward]

An equipment sales manager of a Kodak Express posted on another website saying he was seeing an over 40% returned-defective rate for the Kodak cameras they sell. It sounds like the horror you describe is still the way of things.

Re:Doubtful

[Anonymous Coward]

That might be true, but the Leica is only $6000, so it's ok if the quality is crap.

Not just photography

[Anonymous Coward]

They sold off their Healthcare division (think expensive imaging equipment) in 2007, their graphics division was closed and the programmers replaced with Chinese & Israeli ones in 2009. That outsourcing flopped, competitors brought out major upgrades, Kodak stagnated.

http://printplanet.com/forums/kodak-systems/19947-prinergy-dead-they-laying-off-dev-team

So you might think their problems are just the loss of the low end digital camera business, but the CEO there makes some bad bad decisions in all divisions. A decent CEO could turn that place around.

Re:Not just photography

[Skapare]

A decent CEO could turn that place around.

A decent CEO could create more value by having less baggage. So decent CEOs that know how to innovate don't want to be anywhere near a place that has to deal with everything else. Decent CEOs go to, or make, a startup, and get out before it goes supernova.

Kodak just didn't make good cameras

[Anonymous Coward]

Kodak with their "easy share" docking stations, which never were too easy... and cheap cameras lost the "pro-sumer" crowd who were looking for cameras that they could rely on for taking quality pictures. Kodak never really made DSLRs (I may be wrong on this) nor did their camera's have manual modes. It seems as though more and more people are transitioning from the cheapo camera (think disposable) to capture a random moment here or there to cameras that will really document what was happening. People are investing more as they want to develop some skill and they turn to cameras that help them take good pictures. imho Kodak just never made good cameras. They made the cameras that made good christmas presents (cheap, had the right taglines with so many megapixels and zoom etc), but really just don't last.. think Walmart's NEXT line of bikes~

It's a tough market with amazing technological advances, Kodak opted more for colorful "easy" cameras. not to mention the xD card...

Re:Kodak just didn't make good cameras

[Alex Zepeda]

If by never really made DSLRs you mean invented the DSLR, OKAY.

Re:Kodak just didn't make good cameras

[Anonymous Coward]

If by never really made DSLRs you mean invented the DSLR, OKAY.

Here's 2 Kodak full frame DSLR's from early 2000ish:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/kodakdcs14n/
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/kodakslrc/

Considering the price range and full frame being a new thing back then (let alone the D part of DSLR), it wasn't exactly a "consumer" item.

Because their cameras suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

Kodak just makes shitty digital cameras. At the consumer level at least.

The battery covers are very poorly made with a thin piece of brittle plastic to hold it in. Both the weight of the batteries pushing out on them, and the simple act of gently opening and closing the battery cover is enough to snap it off after a little while.

Their software interface when actually using the camera is poor, and counter productive. The things I'd like to do quickly are all hidden under a few menu layers, while the camera itself has buttons for useless functions I've yet to use once in ten years.

The software to interface with the camera is horrendous crapware. But that can be bypassed by using a memory card or mass storage mode.

Videos taken are locked into the .mov format, which is useless, and requires a QuickTime install, which is more horrendous crapware. In order to do anything with your video files, you pretty much have to buy QuickTime pro to convert them to a different format. (Although, some other tools exist for this now...)

And above all, the image quality of their cameras was never all that great. I've owned several low and mid range kodak digital cameras, and they always produce poorer results then almost any other brand in the same price range. The camera on my friend's iPhone 4 shouldn't be producing better images then my stand alone mid range kodak that cost hundreds of dollars. But it often does.

Kodak's digital era products aren't worthy of the Kodak name.

Re:Because their cameras suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

And above all, the image quality of their cameras was never all that great.

Sorry to be a contrarian but they did actually produce a few camera models with fairly decent picture quality like the V1073. But it was too little, too late.

the real reason kodak failed

[Anonymous Coward]

Kodak failed because they thought they could get away with making digital cameras that were as crappy as their old Instamatic and Brownie film cameras. Their digital cameras were utter dog shit. While the Japanese manufacturers steadily invested in improving the price/performance proposition of their cameras, Kodak squandered one opportunity after another by releasing cheap, mediocre cameras with lame features that few people wanted, like 3D and the ability to upload to a proprietary Kodak photo gallery.

Kodak Easy Share

[Danzigism]

was the biggest piece of crap ever made. After working with tons of residential customers who need their computers cleaned up and ask for an explanation as to what caused their machine to take so long to boot, Kodak Easy Share was the culprit in many cases. I know they're simply trying to make it easy for old people to just plug in their camera to the computer and magically have all their photos transferred to the All Users\My Pictures folder (which is stupid btw), but the software is just pure autorun garbage and why on earth it needed to execute during start up, I have no idea. Regardless of the quality of the cameras, having any negative response on your product cannot be a good thing. I don't think it's the main reason Kodak is filing bankruptcy obviously, but I do think it may have contributed to Kodak's negative consumer image.

Re:Kodak Easy Share

[KillaBeave]

was the biggest piece of crap ever made. After working with tons of residential customers who need their computers cleaned up and ask for an explanation as to what caused their machine to take so long to boot, Kodak Easy Share was the culprit in many cases. I know they're simply trying to make it easy for old people to just plug in their camera to the computer and magically have all their photos transferred to the All Users\My Pictures folder (which is stupid btw), but the software is just pure autorun garbage and why on earth it needed to execute during start up, I have no idea. Regardless of the quality of the cameras, having any negative response on your product cannot be a good thing. I don't think it's the main reason Kodak is filing bankruptcy obviously, but I do think it may have contributed to Kodak's negative consumer image.

THIS!

After fixing my folks machine for the ump-teenth time, I just bought them a little Nikon Coolpix and installed Picasa for them. Simplest camera to work I could find that took good photos and was pretty darned cheap. It also took all of 5 minutes to explain how to organize their photos while importing them into Picasa. (Which I think is the simplest, free photo organizing/editing application out there right now.)

That said, Google just recently ticked me off enough with Picasa that I now have a paid Smugmug account. The only thing I've used the online component of Picasa for is sharing pictures of my daughter with her grandparents and my other relatives that all live 500+ miles away. Not wanting everything public and searchable, I had them locked down to "only those with the link" ... simple enough for grandparents to use. Recently they changed it to where they would all need a google+ account to view my photos if they weren't 100% public. SCREW THEM.

Step 1) All photos deleted on Picasa.
Step 2) Smugmug plugin installed for Picasa application and photo uploaded there.
Step 3) give my folks the URL and password to my now 100% non-searchable site.

No I'm not a paid shill, I've just been impressed with the service I've gotten from smugmug thus far. Also I really like the ability to upload HD videos into my albums so my folks don't have to jump between youtube the photo site. (Reminds me, I need to delete my stuff from there too :)

Re:Kodak Easy Share

[runningman24]

I just sent my mom pictures of my vacation that I uploaded to Picasa. Predictably, I had to go over her house to show her how to browse them. She does not have a google plus account, and was able to view them fine. My pictures are not shared with everybody, just my family circle in google plus.

It's possible that the fact that she has a gmail address is what allowed her to pass through.

Re:Kodak Easy Share

[KillaBeave]

After searching a bit I think you're right. It looks like just a google account is required, not a full-blown G+ account. That makes it less terrible, but still a real pain in the ass.

All things considered, I'm glad I moved over to Smugmug. Gives me total control over my pics and allows me to share HD videos from my shiny new Nikon D5100 (Merry Xmas to me:)

I mean a boring hum-drum one then

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mean a Steve Jobs, whereas I mean a more boring hum-drum one like Mark Hurd.

Basic competent leadership is enough to turn Kodak around, it doesn't need a superstar CEO, or a major new innovation. That graphics software they killed, it was doing well in the marketplace before the credit crunch hit them. Credit crunch hits, idiot CEO sacks all the programmers and outsources it to China to cut costs. Competitors Agfa/Heidleberg etc. hire all the programmers while they're cheap and come out with major upgrades in the next cycle, customers switch from Kodak and Kodak product dies. Why? Some idiot CEO read an outsourcing article and like a gullible idiot believed it???

Cameras still sell, and sell well, and Kodak are still a respected camera maker, but they make slightly overpriced, ugly looking cameras. Just basic CEO cost cutting, and trying out new designers, and adjusting teams, boring CEO 101 stuff would be enough to bring Kodak back.

Kodaks problems are just bad CEO problems.

The Wolves are circling

[Grand Facade]

They can't wait to scoop up all that IP.

Re:KODAK also killed OFOTO too....

[Bob_Who]

Ofoto.com was the premiere photography web upstart at the millennium. At that time, Ofoto was the largest buyer of KODAK paper. In fact, since they were clearly in a position of market dominance, Ofoto's brand looked very appealing to Kodak. Kodak greedily gobbled up that magnificent Berkeley dot com upstart, and made it Dow Jones blue chips.

From that moment forward, it was all down hill for Ofoto. It went from being the technological and artistic leader to falling into stagnation and total alienation of Ofoto's loyal customer base. They tragically proceeded to delete the customer archives, to save on cost. For most people, this cloud was the ONLY back up of their precious data. Kodak refused to allow customers to download their data:or transfer it to other servers. ONLY the purchase of measly 700mb/ $20 CDs was offered as a means of accessing gigabytes of sacred customer data. I recall doing the math and finding that it was more expensive than all of my camera equipment.

Kodak MURDERED Ofoto like they self destructed themselves when they realized that Corporate America is no place for a retired labor force. So just die, rob the shareholders, and let go of all those ballooning pension and health care commitments.

Photography no longer needs the Kodak Korporate Karma.

*Smile*

3% of that statistic is not misleading.

[Anonymous Coward]

What rubbish. I have no doubt that only 3% of photographs on Flickr are mobile phones; Flickr is made up of mostly professional camera operators. If a study was done on every camera click to determine how many photos were taken by mobile phones, professional cameras, traditional film cameras, etc. for a period of time... the percentage of mobile phone photos would be far, far higher than just 3%.

Re:3% of that statistic is not misleading.

[cbope]

And sadly, you are correct.

Identity and communication?

[chrismcb]

What Kodak failed to understand is that people have switched from taking photos for remembering and commemorative reasons to using photos for identity and communication.

eh? Where did that premise come from? You look at Flickr photos and decide that people use photos for identity and communication? I don't see any evidence that the majority of the population DON'T take photos to remember and commemorate.

Re:Identity and communication?

[camperdave]

I use my digital camera for both. When I'm travelling, I'm making commemorative photos. When I'm at home, I use my camera to find things I've dropped before I go through the bother of crawling down on my hands and knees and attacking the rat's nest of wiring beneath my desk. I'll also take pictures of the back of my TV to make sure I've plugged my media player into the right ports, and pictures of the cards and slots inside my PC, and other such "nook and cranny" photography.

Re:I remember just 6 years ago... Kodak ate Ofoto

[Bob_Who]

Someone I knew uploaded their photos to the Kodak site for printing, and had deleted them from her camera.

Rather than making it easy to get a copy of these photos, it was impossible. I think you basically had to order a PhotoCD or something, which I wasn't going to do.

They could have made a proper website to allow people to share their photos and print them. But they made it annoying.

Ofoto.com was the premiere photography web upstart at the millennium. At that time, Ofoto was the largest buyer of KODAK paper. In fact, since they were clearly in a position of market dominance, Ofoto's brand looked very appealing to Kodak. Kodak greedily gobbled up that magnificent Berkeley dot com upstart, and made it Dow Jones blue chips. From that moment forward, it was all down hill for Ofoto. It went from being the technological and artistic leader to falling into stagnation and total alienation of Ofoto's loyal customer base. They tragically proceeded to delete the customer archives, to save on cost. For most people, this cloud was the ONLY back up of their precious data. Kodak refused to allow customers to download their data:or transfer it to other servers. ONLY the purchase of measly 700mb/ $20 CDs was offered as a means of accessing gigabytes of sacred customer data. I recall doing the math and finding that it was more expensive than all of my camera equipment. Kodak MURDERED Ofoto like they self destructed themselves when they realized that Corporate America is no place for a retired labor force. So just die, rob the shareholders, and let go of all those ballooning pension and health care commitments.

They should have downsized long ago

[BlueCoder]

Split off the old film division into a maintenance company for film cameras. Commit to some old school film camera models and maintain them indefinitely. Preserve the ancient art. Support other manufacturers old equipment with parts and film. Raise the prices to maintain the business.

For the digital division come out with a few models of slightly oversized modular cameras. Focus on the amateur photographer. The cameras should be designed to be supported for 10 years and not obsolete in six months. Have the electronics internals replaceable/upgradeable. Build them more sturdy such that they can be dropped and used in the rain. Have unusual models useful for art type stuff such as multiple offset lenses of different types. Be the brand name people look for when what they are looking to do isn't standard. What if people want to use an IR/UV sensor for alternative photography, they won't find that at best buy.

Stop putting filters in the cameras and instead simply take raw images. Put out your own inexpensive inter-operating photo editing suite that will rival Photoshop to "develop" the images. Don't make the software point and click... make it capable. Make the image algorithms transparent though a compiled scripted mathematical language rather than purchased modules/addons.

Bring the people. Then do collaborative deals with commodity hardware companies.

Re:They should have downsized long ago

[lightknight]

Or Kodak could focus on building a camera that takes 3D photos.

It's the next big thing in television (which, arguably, is taking it's time to penetrate, but that may have more to do with consumers having recently upgraded to larger sets, and not willing to ditch them immediately for a 3D technology that is still being worked on), why not photography?

At the very least, it would give them the technological edge for a few years, assuming they are first to market (for consumers, professionals, whatever), which assuming their executive staff isn't completely inept, would be a good thing, financially speaking.

Re:They should have downsized long ago

[Anonymous Coward]

It's taking its time to penetrate because it's pointless and nobody wants it.

Also Kodak never made a good film camera, or a good digital camera, or any good cameras at all.

Re:They should have downsized long ago

[atomicthumbs]

I don't think Kodak's film division has anything to do with making or repairing film cameras.

Re:KODAK also killed OFOTO too....

[sjames]

You hinted at a big reason they utterly failed to enter any market that had a future. They tried with low end to middle of the road digital cameras but they didn't realize that their recognized name could only go so far in a new market. Their products sat on the shelves because they kept adding the "because we're Kodak" surcharge to the pricetag. They were easily outsold by respected brands in consumer electronics that were willing to actually compete for business.

That and, of course, consumer electronics companies were actually better ad developing consumer electronics than a film company. They might have made it if they could have grasped that for the purposes of a consumer electronic device, THEY were the upstart that had to prove itself.

Reasons for failure

[Anonymous Coward]

I think there are three main reasons for Kodak's failure. They are:
1. Still analog and chemical company. It is possible kick people out and just buy electronics and software from somewhere else. Does Kodak want to do it? Also how many internal processes still originate from the rigid chemical process lines? Is it possible to change the people for different industry (i.e. chef to physicist).
2. Pride. Having developed its reputation on analog (pocket) cameras. It's hard for a reputable stove oven company to start selling cheap microwave ovens. It is possible but only with company downsizing and clear selection of its clients. And being proud that you only produce stove ovens.
3. No good products and no clear idea about future progress. No good SLR products, no pro-sumer range. Well this should be clear by now. It's digital. And having read about the product line from multiple sources tells that they trusted in film. Products were secondary. When film eventually died out in practice (especially in medical industry), somebody (investors?) told Kodak they are now standing in deep swamp. I don't know if they ever realized it themselves.

So hows come?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it Kodak and other corporations can file bankruptcy and no one even flashes the "you're a deadbeat" look? And yes, I know you can't give a corporation a "look". They can mismanage funds and management can line their pockets raping the corporations finances and no one says dick. If a normal schmuck files bankruptcy (through job loss, medical catastrophe, mismanagement of funds, etc) society looks at them like they are a pariah. In some circles the person is deemed untrustworthy. just sayin'...

Finally the product placement stops

[mshenrick]

Now finally they can stop ruining music videos, and even songs themselves, with their desperate product placement! Now we just need mini to go bankrupt too

wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

camera phones certainly have eaten into kodak's traditional film, along with other digital cameras. Kodak has just gone the way of the telegraph, replaced by newer technology. It's naive to think that a business can just totally reinvent itself, it's not natural. Things change, obsolete companies go out of business, and that's a good thing, capitalism at work.

Re:The name had something to do with its failure t

[UnknownSoldier]

I would agree with the importance of branding.. When I bought my first digital camera I never considered Kodak. Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Fujifilm were all the brand names that I seemed to be aware of.

The Canon Digital Rebel made quite a stir when it came out and having seen Canon's UI that was easy to pick up and consistent all it camera's line made it a "done deal" for having an "upgrade path" from a simple point-and-shoot, to the Digital Rebel, to the 5D, if I so wanted.

Kodak never was "on the radar."

And the cameras sucked

[David Gerard]

Well, not "sucked" (mostly). But Kodak digital cameras (all compacts) were mediocre at best, and really didn't compare to similarly-priced offerings from Canon and Nikon - both of which companies got big making cameras, not making film.

Their entire digital strategy appeared to be wishing that they were still selling consumables. Canon and Nikon were actually trying new stuff.

And now it's quite possible Canon and Nikon's compact camera business will be eaten by phones. A good 2011 Android phone is a better camera (though without zoom) than a 2005 Canon compact. Everything is turning into a tricorder.

Re:And the cameras sucked

[Alex Zepeda]

Indeed. Kodak cameras sucked so much that the Associated Press and Canon put their names on various models. Their sensors sucked so much that Leica uses them for their M9. Kodak failed in a lot of ways, but they definitely didn't fail to innovate or turn out quality products. Let's not forget that the first commercially-available DSLR was a Kodak camera. Let's also not forget that compact cameras are essentially loss leaders to get people hooked on a brand name.

Re:And the cameras sucked

[David Gerard]

The fine article notes that Kodak failed to turn its technical innovations into marketable products, so you haven't said anything revelatory there.

The trouble with the notion of Kodak compacts as loss leaders is ... what were they loss leaders for? Canon and Nikon have very nice DSLRs and a lifetime wallet tap for the concomitant lenses. What are you claiming Kodak were selling compacts as a loss leader for?

Re:And the cameras sucked

[Alex Zepeda]

Failed to create "marketable products"? I was merely responding to your assertion that they created only compact cameras (which is patently false).

As far as marketable items, their DLSRs were plenty marketable (as were Fuji's) until the people making the bodies (Canon, Nikon) caught up. Hell, Kodak made digital backs for all sorts of cameras (including a variety of SLRs) for a while. So, sure, they don't make digital backs or DSLRs anymore but they sure sell the guts to the camera manufacturers. While they're not volume sellers like compact cameras, the Leica M9, Pentax 645D, and assorted Hasselblad backs are probably quite profitable for Kodak. The Hasselblad CFV-50 runs about $17,000. I suspect somewhere in there is a bit more profit for Kodak than they would have made off of a $200 camera. With a consumer camera they incur development and marketing costs for the whole system. Selling sensors to high end camera manufacturers cuts out the marketing cost, and a lot of the unnecessary faff. Sensors are expensive yet physically small.

Compact cameras are, of course, loss leaders for the more expensive cameras (be they superzoom/bridge, DSLR, rangefinder, or whatever). Dunno what Kodak is still making camera-wise, but this was relevant when they were making pro-grade digital cameras.

Incorrect on the sensors

[Anonymous Coward]

Kodak's sensors WERE the best available, they haven't been for quite some time. For a time they supplied the large sensor market, i.e. full-frame and medium format when the only other consumer competition was Canon (and only full-frame at that). But that's where they stopped. While they kept making new sensors, the basic pixel cell remained largely the same and even their recent sensors are close to 10-year old tech. They got a lot of niche customers like Leica because they would do things that other suppliers wouldn't (low volume, custom modifications).

Both the Canon and later Nikon full-frame sensors were superior in many ways, and the recent ones are superior in all respects. The Kodak FF sensors have nothing on Nikon ones, and Leica only uses them due to lack of access to the latest Canon/Nikon/Sony designs.

The medium-format sensors are also stagnant and aren't much of a revenue stream since that entire industry is dying (sales declining at around 30%/year for the past 20 years).

Makers

[federtanz]

We need Kettlebelly to fuse Kodak and Duracell and start a project that supports many little innovative geek start-up firms to start a new era 'New Work' (I'm reading too much of Cory Doctorow's novels.. =) It's just too strange to encounter so many ideas and parts of his stories in real life..

No film cameras in space!

[Anonymous Coward]

Astronomers use cooled CCDs extensively.

To add to your comment. Digital cameras are clearly more practical than film cameras in nearly all situations. Space probes and the Hubble Space Telescope all use some form of digital imaging. Leaving aside the question of whether a film camera can survive in the harsh conditions of space, you have the problem of reloading film in hardware several million miles away from home. Powered by solar or nuclear energy and armed with a transmitter of some sort, a digital camera can continue snapping photos practically up to the lifetime of the hardware.

Re:No film cameras in space!

[0123456]

Leaving aside the question of whether a film camera can survive in the harsh conditions of space, you have the problem of reloading film in hardware several million miles away from home.

Lunar Orbiter used a film-based system where film was shot and developed in the spacecraft and scanned for downlink to Earth. The early spy sats shot film in space and then dropped the film capsules back to Earth.

So yes, film cameras work in space. They just suck for the reason you mentioned; there's a limited amount of film and sending a new roll into orbit costs millions of dollars.

Wrong conclusion.

[yeOldeSkeptic]

If the reason Kodak failed is because they failed to see the shift in attitude towards photographs, then why is it that traditional camera makers like Canon and Nikon are alive and well?

I think the writer failed to see the obvious here. The reason Kodak failed is because Kodak is primarily a film and photo chemicals maker and not primarily a camera maker. With less people using film it is obvious Kodak can't base its business model on an obsolescent technology. Nikon and Canon are primarily camera makers and they were able to make the shift to digital successfully. Kodak was not.

Kodak's error was that it decided to hold onto a flawed business model rather than just closing down the company and returning the assets to the stockholders. Some companies are destined to close down. It's just the way it is.

Bad analysis

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article "taking photos for remembering and commemorative reasons to using photos for identity and communication". This is a wrong conclusion. Photos are still taken for remembering and commemorative reasons, however they are no longer printed but mostly just kept digitally.

Kodak - forget digital cameras

[l3v1]

I just want to add that if we're talking Kodak, I'd say digital cameras are only a very minor thing, a real tip of an iceberg. If you say Kodak, I first think of good film materials (they have such a long history for this, respect is the least they should get for it), film scanners and recorders, cinema film prcoessing hardware and labs, of the cineon format (they also had a full film processing chain called cineon system back in the days which was great), and so on and so forth. I'm really sad to see them fail so hard recently.

Why Kodak really failed - follow the money

[ill dillettante]

I can't believe all the crap theories that people have posted. The real reason Kodak failed has nothing to do with not recognizing the coming age of digital photography, it is the simple fact that market size for digital photography is less than the old film business. This meant that their legacy costs (pensions and healthcare) could not be supported by the new digital revenue stream.

Kodak's management who are far smarter than 99.9% of the posters on /. (not difficult) knew this and have deliberately run the business into the ground so that they can dump the pension and healthcare costs onto the government and the retired workers all the while stripping the shareholders equity (i.e your 401k) out of the business into their own pockets.

Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greed.

Re:Why Kodak really failed - follow the money

[EmagGeek]

It doesn't have anything to do with greed. It has to do with the absolute fact that defined benefit entitlement programs are only viable with forever-increasing membership. This is because they are just ponzi schemes that are doomed to fail with any kind of fluctuation in the market.

Re:Why Kodak really failed - follow the money

[ill dillettante]

Defined benefit programs like pensions and health insurance are not ponzi schemes if funded correctly, but they are if a business faces a major market change. Kodak knew what it need to do, but there is no way that it could create a viable digital business that could support the film legacy costs.

I do think this does come down to greed. Kodak's management has known all of this for decades. If they had any honor they would have wound down the business to minimize the inevitable loss rather than dragging out the death so that they could maximize the stripping of the remaining value in salaries and bonuses.

Re:Why Kodak really failed - follow the money

[Anonymous Coward]

They can't simply "wind down" the business because that would violate their fiduciary duty to the shareholders. You can't just tell your investors "I give up!" and go home. Besides, the moment they announced "we're winding down the business," the stock would immediately go to zero or close to it and the bankruptcy would be immediate.

The biggest problem is overcommitment to long-term benefit costs that everyone knew or should have known were unsustainable. But, being in New York, a union state, they probably had no choice.

What they should have done was relocate to a right-to-work state like many large businesses are doing today, where there isn't such a substantial long-term penalty to doing business.

Re:Why Kodak really failed - follow the money

[ill dillettante]

They can't simply "wind down" the business because that would violate their fiduciary duty to the shareholders. You can't just tell your investors "I give up!" and go home. Besides, the moment they announced "we're winding down the business," the stock would immediately go to zero or close to it and the bankruptcy would be immediate.

Of course they can "wind down" the business. This is exactly what their fiduciary duty to their shareholders is if they know that the business is not viable (i.e. they are supposed to minimize the losses to the shareholders). Businesses do this all the time when continuing the business just destroys shareholder value. This is what Kodak should have done long ago.

Xray imaging?

[vlm]

I realize I'm posting kind of late, but how come no one has mentioned xray imaging?

Every my cheapie dentist finally moved to a little CCD imager thingy for teeth.

I have a vague memory that each sheet of chest xray film was vaguely similar in cost to all the film a typical camera bug would use on a vacation. Medical / Dental xrays are a big market, or at least it was a big market, until recently.

Crappy analysis

[shilly]

Wow, that article had some crappy analysis. The two standouts for me:
- the rubbish analysis of whether cameraphones are taking over from dedicated cameras. 97% of photos may be uploaded to flickr from dedicated cameras, but more flickr members are using cameraphones. It's just that they're uploading smaller numbers of photos each. If I'm selling cameras, I am interested the latter stat, not the former
- the blithe assertion that facebook photos would also largely be from dedicated cameras, just like flickr. stoopid.

Many Canons can use an open source firmware

[Anonymous Coward]

People have added tons of features to it.

The Kodak firmwares are all locked.

Kodak also squandered time and money on lawsuits while the market passed it by.

I'm shocked at you all...

[rrossman2]

After reading the comments.. I'm shocked no one pointed out something I've been thinking about since my son was born (going to be 2 in Feb).

[I]" What Kodak failed to understand is that people have switched from taking photos for remembering and commemorative reasons to using photos for identity and communication."[/I]

And with less and less places printing actual photo grade photos (vs people who use an inkjet to print photos onto generic FAX/copy paper), I can see a lot of "memories" being lost. Sure the ability to take a photo and upload to Facebook is nice.. instant gratification... but one swipe of the internet and Facebook could be gone, or lock up your photos, and all of those "memories" gone.

Its one reason I downloaded as many photos from my Facebook and my wife's and made a blog page about his leg issues.. a place where I have a backup of all the photos until I get a chance to print them all out in a photo grade fashion.

I'm just surprised no one else commented about that

Re:I'm shocked at you all...

[blakelarson]

I hate the temporary nature of digital photographs. Who goes back and looks at digital pics from five years ago? Is that easy to do? My idea: print out an album for every calendar year. A nice one, like what Shutterfly produces. Shutterfly -- now that is what Kodak should have done (and better, too).

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking at camera data from Flickr,

Flickr? Flickr represents a small segment of the camera-using market.

It would be interesting to repeat this analysis using Facebook data, but there is no reason to believe the results would be substantially different.

There's every reason to believe the results would be substantially different. The average DSLR owner is a photo geek. The average random joe was an owner of a low-level point-and-shoot - was. The iPhone and Android phones are eating the wind out of the sails of point-and-shoots. Joe Bob isn't going to carry around a camera when he already has a phone that in the vast majority of cases, is superior.

Despite Flickr-nonsense, the article is topically correct at least. The deal of low-level cameras isn't to blame for Kodak's demise - Kodak gave up on cameras ages ago. They hitched their buggy to film, and they'll soon arrive at the mythical corporate afterlife where they can buy all the horse whips they'd like.

Kodak: digi-crap in 1997. Digi-crap in 2011.

[Warren416]

In october of this year, my son bought a "waterproof" kodak digital camera that took pretty crappy 640x480 video and crappy 2 megapixel digital photos. The lens was crap, the camera build quality was crap, and the whole thing stopped working within 3 days of purchasing it. I have never seen a more poorly designed, poorly executed thing with a formerly-major-brand on it. In my opinion Kodak-the-brand still meant something to most american consumers, and so the executives have been cashing out. They can't go after the enthusiast market, so they go after kids and senior citizens. Neither one is happy with complete crap though. Warren

Crappy Printers

[scharkalvin]

Kodak tried to enter the printer market and bombed. They had a good idea, produce a printer at a reasonable but not give-away price and sell the ink at a reasonable price (unlike HP that almost gives the printer away and rapes you on the cost of ink). However Kodak did not open up their printer IP or extend support for platforms other than Windows. As a result their printers are paperweights on Linux and BSD (I don't know about MAC's). Even worse, they went to some of the worst factories in China to have their printer built (or the design has too many corners cut). Most reviews claim paper jams, "fire and smoke". They had a chance here, and they blew up big time.

Naw, that is bullshit

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

When CCD's first came out Kodak thought they were just a fad and that people will never abandon film, that was when the death spiral started. A lack of understanding the last couple of years of why photos are being taken is not why Kodak failed.

Re:The name had something to do with its failure t

[camperdave]

I did consider Kodak digital cameras originally. However most, if not all, of the reviews I read on Steve's and DP Review spoke of them not being a good bang for the buck, and excessive "proprietariness". Kodak cameras were all over the map. They didn't seem to have a focus. They were not a good buy.

Kodak's current range of cameras is excellent.

[michaelrmgreen]

Now would be a good time for a bargain.

Bottom line...

[Anonymous Coward]

Kodak just didn't understand their customers. In the 1990's a bunch of executives in polyester suits were sitting in conference rooms that looked like something out of the Brady Bunch trying to tell themselves that what they had was AWESOME. Outsiders who wandered in and questioned the prevailing logic where shunned and forced to eat their baloney sandiches at the Losers table while the big boys feasted in the executive dining room. I lie not.

Poster has no clue

[Anonymous Coward]

Kodak made the majority of its revenue from the sale of film. So when digital cameras became mainstream, film sales fell off a cliff, and Kodak went down. My Dad worked at Kodak and was there long enough to see the start of the end. The person posting the original hypothesis has no clue as to how Kodak made its money.

Kodak should have followed the RIAA's lead.

[Anonymous Coward]

They should have sued anyone downloading pictures instead of purchasing prints!

Why film still rules, for me

[Anonymous Coward]

Digital cameras are great for some things. I have so many snapshots I would have never had otherwise. I love my Lumix, but the images have a lot of noise in them. It is *terrible* in low light.

Ah, digital. Never before have so many people been able to take so many mediocre photos that will be forgotten.

A few years ago, common digital cameras improved to the point where people realized their mondo range zooms were actually pretty lousy And, golly, those old fixed focal length film lenses are really sharp. Surprise!

I cannot buy an affordable digital camera that has the dynamic range of modern negative film.

Ever see a well shot black and white movie? With scenes actually shot at night (instead of day, made to look like night), or in a dark bar. Where you can actually see shadow detail, or down a dark hallway? Digital struggles to do that, even with the instant review and playback of the results.

Somehow, a few of us still manage to take *great* photos on film. Low light, no flash, concert photos, landscapes, night shots, etc. All without Image Stabilization, mediocre auto-focus, and all of that other crud. I suppose that's because we learned something about photography beyond "spray and pray". I know, I know, it's a quaint concept. You can do well with digital, but you typically need to spend a Lot of money on gear that quickly becomes obsolete.

CCD cameras all suffer from the limitations of Bayer Interpolation. People get all excited about higher megapixel counts, but it is mostly just a sham. My $600 Canon DSLR is merely okay. The same image taken with a 30 year old 35mm camera does not suffer from Bayer Interpolation.

I shoot medium format film. My images are 11,000x9,000 pixels, 16 bits, no Bayer Interpolation. The sensor in my Nikon scanner is actually from Kodak.

I like to make quality prints, that people like to hang on their walls. Large prints. That means film.

I love my digital cameras for some things. I love digital printing. But for a lot of stuff, film still rules.

Shrugs.

Re:Why film still rules, for me

[BitterOak]

You make some very good points. It is true that decent digital cameras are more expensive than film cameras of similar quality. And as I read further down your post and saw that you shoot in medium format, I think it's even more true. But keep in mind that medium format is typically used by professional photographers. Even in the days when film was supreme, most average people just used 35mm SLRs. And Canon makes some affordable DSLRs (such as the T3i) which are very good, and much better at shooting in low lighting conditions that digital cameras used to be. Not to mention the fact that they also shoot awesome video.

But for serious photographers that shoot in medium format, I agree, digital replacements are still quite expensive. And in the digital age, I'm afraid black and white is becoming a lost art.

Re:The name had something to do with its failure t

[UnknownSoldier]

> I read on Steve's and DP Review
Yup, Steve's Digicam and Digital Photography Review were (and still are) THE place to check out camera reviews! Luckily I had a friend who caught the shutter bug and he introduced me to those two great review sites before I got my first camera. Nice to see them mentioned. Lots of good memories checking out the latest Canon reviews back in the day. =)

> Kodak cameras were all over the map. They didn't seem to have a focus. They were not a good buy.
I think that's one reason Canon and Nikon ate Kodak for lunch. Every year or so they would bring out a new model. You can tell by the fact of Canon + Nikon + others having to compete forced them to innovate -- consumers ended up winning with features & price. i.e. The 2000s were all about the megapixel (MP) war and showed us that once you reach a certain threshold the MP number starts to become pointless. Ease of Use, Shutter lag, Camera Lens options, picture quality (PQ), weight, battery life, etc. all become more important.

The only thing the camera industry fucked up on was batteries. Consumers want STANDARD re-chargeable batteries sizes and power draw, much like how we had a standard for non-rechargeable batteries (A, AAA, C, D) although someone pointed out in the past few months in another thread that we now have this ...

Government is to blame

[roman_mir]

Of-course this bankruptcy was not inevitable even in the face of the various disruptive technologies but only when government decided to step in and tell Kodak what it could and could not do, how it could not diversify its business, how it could not invest into other businesses and opportunities that the failure of the company became inevitable.

You think government CREATES jobs? It never jobs, it has no job-creating capacity. Even jobs that are directly created with government money cost more jobs that are destroyed/prevented from being created in the private sector, because every government sponsored job is a job that should never have existed and it only exists by taxing productive sectors.

Governments are the only real reasons for the economic disasters around the world since the beginning of the man kind.

Re:Government is to blame

[Anonymous Coward]

Governments are the only real reasons for the economic disasters around the world since the beginning of the man kind.

Well, I'm certainly glad you cleared that up.

The old money families and their modern instruments, the world banking cartels, which have dictated to governments since time immemorial that we obtain our money supply only through borrowing at interest from their little club rather than allow populations to print and manage our own currencies have nothing at all to do with the various engineered collapses they put us through, do they?

Governments are broken, filled with sociopaths, polluted, but they are also theoretically the only way a sane population can protect itself in a global business environment like ours. With everybody working together. Of course, people are too distracted, drugged, and generally foolish to be able to maintain such collective power. Heck, the dark side has actually managed to convince about half the Western world that our own power is bad for us and that they will, for the benefit of everybody, relieve us of it. We lose the game almost immediately because there are too many stupid, ignorant assholes bent on selfishness.

C'est la vie.

Diversify or spin off

[John Bayko]

If only it were that simple. The big problem is deciding what to change into. A company in a declining market may have a very profitable, cash cow business. They can use that money to fund the search for a new business model. [...]

Having cash and recognition that your business is declining is not enough. The real rub is finding something else that you can succeed at. And I don't think there is any obvious way to go about that.

There is a different mindset between Japanese companies, such as FujiFilm, and American ones like Kodak. Japanese companies usually try to diversify at all times (not when in decline), so FujiFilm expanded from film to photocopiers, displays, and anything else they could (within Japan, large companies are often extremely diversified. Nintendo once ran taxis, Mitsubishi Electric makes elevators and televisions, Yamaha makes music keyboards and motorcycles). American companies have the phrase "core competency" as a mantra, and will often sell off profitable divisions (the entire technical equipment side of HP) or even wind them down if they're not profitable enough (HP calculators). The name for this is "unlocking shareholder value", and maybe it does, but it tends to weaken companies which no longer have the flexibility to adapt to market changes. Rather than one division growing while another shrinks, one spun-off company grows while another goes bankrupt.

Kodak Software

[Wandering Voice]

My father purchased a Kodak point-and-click throw-away digital camera, and not being very tech savy, installed the Kodak image software that came with it. The software hijacked all image formats on his PC and would revert file associations when manually changed.

He swore he would not trust or use Kodak again. IMO regardless of their history or innovations, they sabotaged themselves in many ways. And deserve what is coming to them.

Neopan's not discontinued

[atomicthumbs]

I shoot Neopan Acros 100 for most of my B&W landscape work. Acros is still available in 135, 120, and 4x5 sheet film, and Neopan 400 is still available in 35mm. From what I recall, Plus-X is garbage compared to Acros.

I blame mediocrity

[Duncan J Murray]

let them produce craptastic cameras instead of partnering with a camera maker

You're right that someone let them produce craptastic cameras, but wrong on the partnering front - kodak and nikon were there at the very start of the digital slr revolution, using top-of-the-line nikon bodies and kodak sensors. This was before Nikon made their first dslr (D1 I think).

The problem was - they were priced in the tens of thousands, and weren't that good. One of their last dslrs was the '14n' - a 14 megapixel full-frame camera released ahead of it's time in 2002. Unfortunately, it was very expensive and not very good, with noise at almost all ISOs.

If I were to put a reason on why Kodak have failed it's because they only achieved mediocrity. Their compact digital cameras were not especially desirable, nor especially cheap. Their photo printers didn't match canon/epson quality. Their DSLRs were outclassed and undercut by thousands of pounds by Nikon's D1 and Canon's later offerings. Their film had the famous, but expensive and difficult-to-process, kodachrome. Fuji were extremely competitive, and Kodak still can't come up with an anwser to Fuji's velvia.

Things might have been completely different if they were able to compete in any of these areas.

Pity

[Dabido]

It's a pity. I was still buying their printer paper to print my photos on (when I print photos that is). I did have a Kodak Digital camera at one stage, but switched to Nikon and have never looked back. Up to my second Nikon camera now, and they are wonderful things. But, every photographer I know recommends either Nikon or Canon for anything that is more than just a point and shoot (and my nikon works wonderful even when I'm lazy and just doing a 'point and shoot' thing on 'Auto'). So, they really didn't get a look in at that end of the market. As far as point and shoot cameras go, my old Kodak was expensive, and it is a crowded market, and as some people always point out to me, the cameras in mobile phones are getting to the point of being just as good (in some case better) as point and shoot cameras.

Uh, just maybe..

[joleonard1]

Is it conceivable that they had no chance in the new market?

Misleading

[Vrtigo1]

Just because the image was uploaded in 2011 doesn't mean it was taken in 2011. For example, last year my wife and I had our first child, so I wanted an easy way to share photos with our family, so I created a Flickr Pro account. I use the Flickr app on my smartphone to instantly upload photos. But, I also imported the last 10 years of digital photos from my archive. 100% of those photos were taken with digital cameras, not phones, but that's just because I have a lot of photos from the late 90s through the mid 2000s when camera phones caught on.

Nowadays, 90% of the photos I take are with a phone. I only haul the camera out when I'm going on vacation, or there is a special occasion such as a birthday, holiday, etc. Since EXIF also includes the date the photo was taken, I bet if they ran that same query, but instead of only looking at photos uploaded in 2011, also look at photos that were actually TAKEN in 2011, the percentages would shift by a good amount.