A Tale of Two Companies 70
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Unknown Lamer
from the dying-breed dept.
from the dying-breed dept.
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:Wrong Example (Score:5, Insightful)
Pity, so many people lost jobs because of a few retarded managers at the top of their companies.
There are two classes of people at Polaroid and Kodak who got the axe. The first are the technicians, engineers and related staff. Those people were going to lose their jobs regardless, as the products they made were no longer wanted. The other class of people at Kodak and Polaroid were the managers, supervisors and non-technical staff. Those people can get jobs elsewhere (and most of them have). Very few people lost their jobs who wouldn't have been let go when these companies transitioned to new technologies, except managers, who can hardly be said to be innocent victims.
-=Geoskd
Re:Incidentally... (Score:4, Insightful)
After all, there isn't any reason why a company needs to struggle to perpetuate its existence forever(any more than a company would struggle to perpetuate the existence of a given product line forever).
That would be equivalent to euthanasia for companies. But there are real reason why it is not universally accepted. For all companies that have died there are enough examples that have struggeld and come out stronger. Nokia and Apple comes to mind immediatly. They diversified and successed beyond immagination.
The message is: don't quit too easily.
Re:Poor management (Score:4, Insightful)