Kodak Goes On The Offensive Against Digital Film

from the not-on-their-watch? dept

Six years ago I (with two others) wrote up a detailed analysis of what was going to happen to Kodak's film sales business due to the coming prominence of digital snapshot cameras (and eventually digital cameras for professional photographers). People at Kodak who saw it said that while all of our research was sound, and the conclusions made sense, they didn't believe it would happen. They thought most photographers would never become comfortable with digital pictures. It looks like they're losing that battle. Now, they're going to lose the battle with filmmakers who are increasingly moving to shooting with digital cameras. Kodak is trying to fight back by saying that digital isn't as good as regular film. This seems like a classic disruptive technology innovation. Sure, digital isn't as good as film for some things, but it's good enough for many things, and it's only getting better (which fits in with the classic disruptive technology curve). It also has some advantages over film (such as being able to watch what you've filmed right away). Kodak can fight back with words all they want, but they're going to have to do something before more of their business is wiped out from under them.

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