Few people bother to voice this, because its simply not going to happen, so why wish for it?
Few people bother to voice this, because its simply not going to happen, so why wish for it?Scanning through this thread, I'm surprised at the lack of calls for Kodachrome.
Yes, 1 for 5 rolls of film. Not full size.
Few people bother to voice this, because its simply not going to happen, so why wish for it?
Their mistake was not to accept digital. They were trying to protect the film industry that was their lifeblood. They would rather go down with the ship than change course. How many of us wait too long to change before it's too late? A good lesson there.
Their mistake was not to accept digital. They were trying to protect the film industry that was their lifeblood. They would rather go down with the ship than change course. How many of us wait too long to change before it's too late? A good lesson there.
We’re up to 4. Just something about that Kodachrome blue. Modern stuff just isn’t the same.Me too, so make that three!
Their mistake was not to accept digital. They were trying to protect the film industry that was their lifeblood. They would rather go down with the ship than change course. How many of us wait too long to change before it's too late? A good lesson there.
So much have been said on this. At the very least, the notion you're expressing here does very little justice to what actually happened. For instance, Kodak did embrace digital. They were among the first to explore it in the first place. Moreover, it's not that they didn't want to change course. They just couldn't. Even if they had been capable of axing the film business to free up resources to move into digital, this would have induced a massive discontinuity in the business (with catastrophic effects), and they would have found out not all resources are fungible (which of course they realized perfectly well anyway).
The failure of Kodak to successfully migrate from film to digital is too often touted as a strategic oversight or somehow a lack of situational awareness. While this certainly played a role early on, Kodak management certainly weren't excessively late in realizing where the market was heading. It was much more due to issues like path dependence and asset specificity. They walked into the abyss with wide open eyes - and that must have been a quite painful experience for many people who knew exactly what was going on. In the past two decades, I've worked for two separate companies who were (or still are in one case) in a similar position. It's really interesting to see this happening up close and personal - and trust me, large firms house more than enough intelligence and talent to understand perfectly well what's going on. Changing the course of an oil tanker, however, is darn difficult. Especially if you don't know exactly where to head to.
It isn't that they didn't accept digital. It is that they saw no way of achieving anything to the close to the sort of profit margins that they were able to rely on from film if they were making and selling things in the digital photographic marketplace.
And on that, they were entirely correct.
So the requirements of their shareholders sent them elsewhere.
We’re up to 4. Just something about that Kodachrome blue. Modern stuff just isn’t the same.
I always considered Ektachrome blue. Fortunately, the modern stuff just just isn’t the same.
Save the tags from previous times. I keep a box of them.
So much have been said on this. At the very least, the notion you're expressing here does very little justice to what actually happened. For instance, Kodak did embrace digital. They were among the first to explore it in the first place. Moreover, it's not that they didn't want to change course. They just couldn't. Even if they had been capable of axing the film business to free up resources to move into digital, this would have induced a massive discontinuity in the business (with catastrophic effects), and they would have found out not all resources are fungible (which of course they realized perfectly well anyway).
The failure of Kodak to successfully migrate from film to digital is too often touted as a strategic oversight or somehow a lack of situational awareness. While this certainly played a role early on, Kodak management certainly weren't excessively late in realizing where the market was heading. It was much more due to issues like path dependence and asset specificity. They walked into the abyss with wide open eyes - and that must have been a quite painful experience for many people who knew exactly what was going on. In the past two decades, I've worked for two separate companies who were (or still are in one case) in a similar position. It's really interesting to see this happening up close and personal - and trust me, large firms house more than enough intelligence and talent to understand perfectly well what's going on. Changing the course of an oil tanker, however, is darn difficult. Especially if you don't know exactly where to head to.
It isn't that they didn't accept digital. It is that they saw no way of achieving anything to the close to the sort of profit margins that they were able to rely on from film if they were making and selling things in the digital photographic marketplace.
And on that, they were entirely correct.
So the requirements of their shareholders sent them elsewhere.
@koraks and @MattKing pretty much covered it. Kodak did sell digital cameras and other related paraphernalia, but they couldn't compete in that market.
Anyway, they weren't a ship - they were a continent. There was no way to change course. As it was, when the business dried up, they were saddled with a massive amount of useless money-draining infrastructure. Changing course wouldn't have alleviated that burden.
Matt, that's what I posted. "They were trying to protect the film industry that was their lifeblood."
Actually, they could clearly see that the profits were quickly drying up. They weren't trying to protect the film industry, they were bailing ship as fast as they could - they moved almost all their energies away from film. Thus the horribly failed attempt to make the Kodak inkjet printers a success.
Their purchase of Creo, with its major position in the commercial printing industry, was somewhat more successful, but they didn't really succeed with that either.
All I want is for Kodak to stay in the game.
That's up to us. They make good products. We have to buy them.
So do y'all want me to include the thing about the Olympics or what? Let me know because I am fixing to make my third Manhattan.
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