I think the crisis in the photo industry is much more deep than they say or even want to believe in. Some people says that one of the two last big ones (Kodak and Fuji) will end the year almost broken and I agree.
It's clear that the "digital soluction" adopted in a hurry by the photo industry was just like a gunshot in its own feet. For decades Kodak, Fuji, Ilford, Agfa and Konica sold camera gear but had most of its income from films, paper and chemicals for processing ... nowadays with digital the number of prints sold are decreasing drastically and they can do nothing about that because they sold the tool for the consumer to avoid speding money with photo labs.
I think in the near future things will get worse for photo industry and a lot of other companies will bankrupt or will go out of photo business. The biggest problem is that in this war we, consumers, are the
real losers.
Yours,
Charles
karl shah-jenner <shahjen@xxxxxxxxxxxx> escreveu:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/new/index.shtml
(a few excerpts from today's news:)
"Friday's edition of The International Herald Tribune has a very
interesting discussion between three experts in Japanese equities regarding
the stock market, the global competitiveness of Japanese companies, and
trends to watch. The follow is an excerpt relevant to the changing
photographic industry"
"The mistake that Pentax and other camera manufacturers made was in digital
cameras, which as a business are not like cameras but more like home
electronics, with short product cycles. It's not an efficient business for
camera manufacturers to be in"
.."the digital camera business falls in the same category. It's a
winner-take-all game where unless you become the winner, you lose all your
profits in the process of competition. Japanese firms that have been in
those types of businesses have all been destroyed."
I hope it isn't too late for at least THIS camera manufacturer.. Many
others have already fallen - and it's been their own fault.
When they should have been promoting their traditional products and
marketing the strengths, they instead chose to promote effectively a
competitors product - the digital camera
It'll be interesting to see how and more importantly, IF any attempts to
re-market a product they abandoned as old fashioned and obsolete will be
successful
I wish them luck and curse their initial greed and shortsightedness
k
