In 1977, Steve Sasson an employee for
Kodak was granted a patent for the world's first digital camera,
20 years before they became common among consumers.
But according to Sasson in an interview with The New York Times,
management said, "That's cute but don't tell anyone about it."
This is the story about how Kodak went from top of the world to bankruptcy.
A Kodak moment used to mean something,
the moment that was so special that you wish you had a camera to capture it forever.
But it wasn't a camera moment,
it was a Kodak moment.
That's how big Kodak was.
I really missed you.
It's a Kodak moment.
Its size and growth over its existence can
largely be attributed to the company's willingness to innovate.
In 1888, 34 year old George Eastman of Rochester,
New York released his Kodak black camera.
The first camera designed to use raw film.
By 1896, Kodak was the leading supplier of film stock worldwide.
But Eastman and Kodak kept creating.
1897, the first folding pocket camera allowed for easy transport.
1900, the Brownie camera,
one of the earliest cameras designed for mass market.
1902, the developing machine,
let amateurs develop at home without a darkroom.
1920, the autograph feature.
Tragically in 1932, at age 77,
Eastman took his own life.
His suicide note read,
"My work is done. Why wait?"
For the next 45 years,
Kodak continued to invent: Kodachrome, 1935.
Starmatic, 1959.
Instamatic, 1963.
The carousel projector, 1965.
Innovation is what got Kodak to the top of the photography world,
but there was one change,
one invention that Kodak couldn't embrace,
Steve Sasson's digital camera.
In 1975, Steve Sasson,
a recent graduate of RPI was working at Eastman Kodak in Rochester, New York.
His supervisor Gareth A Lloyd gave him
his first assignment: Build an electronic camera using a charge coupled device.
A charge coupled device captures light and converts it to digital data.
He did it, but you probably wouldn't recognize it.
It weighed eight pounds,
ran on 16 naked batteries,
and held 30 images.
Nonetheless, it was the world's first digital camera.
The invention was so impressive,
so game changing that Kodak wanted it gone.
As late as 1976,
Kodak commanded 90 percent of film sales in the US.
If this camera hit the market,
executives felt it would cannibalize its film business.
Kodak, which had always embraced holistic diverse innovation,
chose film over photography.
The nearsighted view allowed competitors to fill the void.
Sony has done it again.
This is the latest in camera technology.
It is called a Mavica.
That stands for Magnetic Video Camera.
It records images on a magnetic disk,
and then those are transmitted on television.
It stored pictures on two inch floppy disks called
Mavipaks that could hold up to 50 color photos.
Other companies followed with their versions.
The digital camera, most like the ones we have today,
hit the shelves in 1990.
The Dycam model one.
In the future, however,
you may use a camera like this one.
There is no film,
and when you want to see your pictures,
you simply take them to your computer.
Finally, in 1991, 14 years after
Kodak was granted the patent for the world's first digital camera,
it released the Kodak digital camera system.
By that time the digital camera market was getting crowded.
Instead of establishing themselves early with the world's first digital camera,
Kodak was in the middle of the pack and still hanging onto a dying industry.
Ironically, Kodak reached the top of the market right before its historic collapse.
In 1996, Kodak's revenue reached nearly 16 billion,
and the company was worth over 31 billion.
Kodak was the fifth most valuable brand in the world,
but the repercussions of its inaction over the last 20 years were on the horizon.
Kodak was still a giant so it began efforts to maintain its hold on the industry.
This is where Kodak made their second big blunder.
From 1996 to 2012,
Kodak's business strategy relied on
a false pretense that people wanted hard copies of their photos.
In 2001, Kodak debuted its Easyshare line of point and shoot cameras.
Transfer at the touch of a button and your pictures are ready to email or print.
Its digital photography made simple.
While consumers loved them,
the Easyshare cameras soon became commoditised and Kodak struggled to make a profit.
Next, Kodak bought the photo gallery site of photo and renamed it Kodak Gallery.
To complete the final step of the process,
Kodak set off on its new endeavor, printers.
Just press a button to get real Kodak photos at home without a PC.
Yet, these two failed to reach profitability.
Kodak found out the hard way that people didn't need print photos anymore.
They now shared them online.
Photo albums were replaced with MySpace, Facebook, and Instagram.
You don't just go to a party anymore.
You go to a party with a digital camera,
and then your friends relive the party online.
While the failure to market the digital camera was the mistake
that sent Kodak on the path toward bankruptcy,
the mistake that kept them on course was
the belief that people wanted hard copies of their photos.
In 2008, Kodak got desperate.
The company began mining its patent portfolio.
This generated nearly two billion dollars in fees over three years.
By 2010, Kodak dropped to seventh place in camera sales behind Canon, Sony, and Nikon.
Generations of American families captured
the great milestones of their lives using Kodak cameras.
But today, you could buy a share of
Eastman Kodak stock for less than we once paid for a roll of Kodachrome film.
In 2012, Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
One of the great companies of the last century collapsed.
Kodak is still alive today,
but most of their work is for other companies.
They provide packaging, functional printing,
and graphic work for businesses around the world.
Lots of companies are jumping in on the crypto-craze trend.
The most recent is camera company, Kodak.
In a strange turn, Kodak announced their entry into Bitcoin in January 2018.
A photographer oriented block chain cryptocurrency
used for payments for licensing photographs.
In July 2018, it canceled KodakCoin.
Kodak's failure to embrace the digital camera is a lesson on the power of the market.
No industry or business can resist change and
you have to adapt even if that means competing with yourself.
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