I am sure many of you would recall that a decade or two ago, Kodak was perhaps one of the top vendors in cameras and all things related. The company has been a very profitable enterprise, being among the pioneers of camera business. But then the bad days of Kodak started and it wasn’t able to cope quickly to the world becoming fast digital. Now, Kodak has shocked the world by stating that it is abandoning the ‘camera’ business altogether for good.
According to the company, by the end of June it is expecting to pull the plug on it’s digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames. Although we have long known of the dismal record of the company on camera front but this really comes as a shock for most. According to Kodak, it will now be focusing on brand licensing and making it’s profits through licensing the patents. For the record, Kodak owns some very key patents important for digital imaging.
According to Kodak’s Consumer Business President, “For some time, Kodak’s strategy has been to improve margins in the capture device business by narrowing our participation in terms of product portfolio, geographies and retail outlets. Today’s announcement is the logical extension of that process, given our analysis of the industry trends.” Kodak was the pioneers in the camera industry by introducing cameras well over a century ago. It’s been a long journey for the company which saw immense boom initially and continued with the rise but as the world grew digital, Kodak fell short of adapting to it quickly enough.
Kodak filed for bankruptcy last month and hopes that by securing a fair capital, and by concentrating on patenting business, it can sail through this crisis for now.
Image courtesy alf.
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