A Tale of Two Companies 70
Rick Zeman writes "They've had the best of times, and now they're living through the worst of times. The Washington Post talks about the dissolution of both Kodak's and Polaroid's business models, what Kodak can learn from Polaroid's earlier mistakes, and the resurrection of some classic Polaroid tech by private entrepreneurs."
Re:Poor management (Score:5, Informative)
Somewhat true. Why did Fujifilm survive? Because they correctly saw themselves as an industrial coatings company, and not a photography company.
Kodak also had great experience in *optics* (they may have made optics for some generations of surveillance satellites, very high-tech and expensive)---optics are necessary for photography but it isn't the same area exactly.
They had great expertise in two critical industrial areas, but the managers were apparently stuck on consumer photography, and did not appreciate how inexpert they were in semiconductors and consumer electronics.
Re:Poor management (Score:5, Informative)
There was little Kodak or Polaroid could do.
This is certainly true of Polaroid, but Kodak, for all intents and purposes, invented digital photography and still failed to capitalize on the technology that made their primary product obsolete.