Kodak -- has a company ever crumbled so far so fast?

WANG could certainly give KODAK a run for its money.

Oh, wait. It has no money.

"I could eat a can of Kodak and PUKE a better movie!"

That’s like asking what happened to the manufacturers of lp’s, upon the advent of CD’s.

Or how the advent of sound affected the movies.

Effective invention can make previous custom obsolete.

Vaudeville will be back!

Nokia's collapse was pretty spectacular.

....

[quote]It used to be HUGE!

We're still big! It's the PICTURES that got small ... and digital.

It used to be BIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG!!!!!!!

The Video Rental industry. Blockbuster and Hollywood Video were everywhere and probably went from their peak to disappearing in about ten to 15 years.

But Polaroid is back! Who'd've predicted that?

There is a Harvard Business School case study on Kodak's demise. It was fast. And the dinosaur management team epically thought film was here to stay. Forever.

R10 The Polaroid we knew is not back. The name was bought by a Chinese company.

Loved his show from the 70s. He was way ahead of his time with the bald head.

Cute little roadtrip movie prompted by the end of Kodachrome film processing.

Kodak and the Oscars - a partnership that will last FOREVER!

Instax is almost like the old Polaroid land camera. It's very popular now for some reason so maybe Kodak threw in the towel too soon.

Vinyl records and turntables are for sale all over the place and print book sales are up, while ebook sales are stagnant.

Everything old is new again. Well, except for Sears, I guess that's not coming back anytime soon.

do people still call picture time a "kodak moment"?

I think this old Kodak TV ad is beautifully done. From the music, to the casting, to the editing. Superb!

Yes. Enron.

Xerox, Nokia, Pan Am, Arthur Andersen, Woolworths, Lehman Brothers

Other companies like Enron, Research in Motion/Blackberry, Yahoo, AOL, Worldcom did not have the storied corporate histories that those companies (and Kodak) had although their collapses were spectacular in their own right and destroyed billions.

In addition to Kodak's having an ingenious ad and marketing campaign, its packaging colors hit all the right nerves: Chrysanthemum Yellow. This color has been proven to immediately draw attention to the eye.

I miss those James Garner and Mariette Hartley commercials for Polaroid, a related company that has gone with the wind.

Facebook.

Paul Anka song used for Kodak also used for Mad Men three years ago:

I really wanted a Polaroid camera as a kid. I think the film might have been expensive and the colors did fade after awhile. My nephew has one of the new generation of Polaroid cameras. the pictures are small, but they are also kept in digital format if you want to make normal prints.

Weren't their rumors Garner and Hartley had an affair during their fairly long stretch doing those commercials, and he might have been the father of her baby? I always liked them - together and separately. She was a guest star in about every series in the 70's, made a fair amount of TV movies, but never had one of her own shows make it.

I'm still here, fuckers.

$19.95 then is $152 now.

[quote] R12:The Polaroid we knew is not back. The name was bought by a Chinese company.

Same with AT&T, as I recall.

IIRC, going into the dot-com crash in ~1988, there were a lot of high tech companies in the Boston metro area. When we reemerged after the recession, Boston’s high tech companies had either closed, or moved to Silicon Valley.

"Weren't their rumors Garner and Hartley had an affair during their fairly long stretch doing those commercials, and he might have been the father of her baby?"

Absolutely NOT, R26. Were you around in 1976 or got this bullshit on some website?

R21 - after the massive scandal Arthur Andersen was rebranded as PricewaterhouseCoopers so all the criminals just keep on doing what they do...

As for Kodak - times changes and its product was no longer used.

Ironically, Kodak developed digital photography.

I was a kid in 76, this might be what I was remembering.

[quote]Hartley guest-starred in a memorable episode of Garner's television series The Rockford Files around this time. The script required the two to kiss at one point and unknown to them, a paparazzo was photographing the scene from a distance. The photos were run in a tabloid trying to provoke a scandal, causing a good deal of attention.[citation needed] An article that ran in TV Guide was titled: "That woman is not James Garner’s wife!"

I do remember there being buzz when Garner and his wife separated for awhile during this time period. I am not saying there was any truth to the rumors and that it was not all unfounded speculation, but I do remember people wondering about them. They did have great chemistry. I always felt Mariette should have had a bigger career and Garner had a effortless charm and could do both drama and comedy.

Polaroids were popular for "naughty" photos since it was nearly impossible (and very embarrassing) to get such things developed when shot on regular film.

Western Union is another one. They had their fingers in so many pies, and if they had played their cards right we could easily be carrying a Western Union credit card, or using a Western Union Cellphone, or even sending our packages overnight by Western Union--they were pioneers in all these great technologies, but all they wound up with was The Mailgram.

[quote][R21] - after the massive scandal Arthur Andersen was rebranded as PricewaterhouseCoopers so all the criminals just keep on doing what they do...

This statement is not even remotely factually true.

Due to laws governing audits, each of the then Big 5, and now Big 4 (PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, KPMG, Ernst and Young), accounting firms are were partnerships formed in each country in which it operated.

Each of Andersen's various partnerships in each country around the world were acquired by the other Big 4 firms, some acquired the entire partnership in the country, some divided offices, and some even acquired individual practices.

Also, as a practical matter, long after Andersen collapsed, the criminal charges (that effectively made it impossible for them to do any work for any listed company) were dropped. Also, while each country was a separate partnership, the US firm, against whom the charges were initially filed, was so connected both from a business perspective (since almost all large international companies have US-based operations that Andersen's US firm would have to audit), as well as being the "banker" for the other firms (they provided a lot of the operating cash and held the debt that financed the operations of other firms), that the US firm's collapse precipitated the global collapse.

This is an entertaining channel.

What do you mean by "so fast," OP? Kodak has been in business for 130 years and continues to exist. 130 years is a long time as far as businesses go.

Fun Fact: Walt Disney wanted Art Linkletter to be master of ceremonies for Disneyland's grand opening. Linkletter agreed to do it for scale, but wanted the film concession at the park for 10 years. Walt agreed, and Likletter made a fortune with that little Kodak Store on Main Street.

R34, where were these rumors? At your mother's afternoon tea and chicken salad luncheons? I'm not saying that Garner and Hartley didn't have chemistry, I'm arguing that there were any rampant rumors - there were NOT, not even in Movie Screen or the Enquirer.

Anyway R37.

That's what happened to Andersen Consulting in my country. They are all currently working at PricewaterhouseCoopers now and that is a fact. The only thing learned was how to hide what they do better.

Didn't it take Kodak 100 years to crumble? Not exactly a swift downfall.

JCPenney stock fell below $1 today. So ...maybe they're next?

r27 Not so fast. You might have less than 24 hours left.

There was an advert years ago, around about the time that phones were replacing cameras for photo-taking, about how special it was to flip through a photo album. It ended with "We miss REAL photos, and we want them back." It really did reek of desperation.

I want to send a Candygram!

I worked for a company that made sphygmomanometers. Back then they had the patent for sphygmomanometers and nobody else could make them. They were made of metal with mercury inside and had a black rubber bulb attached to black rubber tubing. No one thought blood pressure could be read any other way. The company was gobsmacked when electronic ones appeared on the market. They’d never thought anything like that could happen. They were family owned and figured the family would be set for generations of business.

Did the family treat the employees like shit, r48?

r47=Land Shark

Bell & Howell

Bell Labs

Bell Helicopters

Ma Bell

Just wow, R44. I had no idea it was that bad.

The odd thing is I’ve switched back to film after shooting digital for years. A client asked me to shoot 120 Fuji Provia instead of digital. I bought a Mamiya RB67 in excellent condition for about $450. Shot 25 rolls. Scanned the slides into RAW files then continued my workflow in Bridge and Photoshop. The following weekend I shot and developed 10 rolls of Ilford HP5 B&W film. I’m hooked. Bought a $1,000 Hasselblad when I don’t feel like carrying the 10lb Mamiya brick around. Spent $150 for a 70s vintage Canonet QL17. I’m set. No need to buy a new $3,500 digital camera every 2 years.

Seems like every Millenial in Brooklyn has switched to film. It’s retro and exciting.

[quote]That's what happened to Andersen Consulting in my country. They are all currently working at PricewaterhouseCoopers now and that is a fact. The only thing learned was how to hide what they do better.

No, it's not. Your statement is factually incorrect.

Andersen Consulting was spun out from Arthur Andersen and became Accenture years before the accounting firm collapsed.

The audit businesses were acquired by different organizations, primarily the other remaining Big 4 firms. Also, whatever problems occurred with the audit business was almost wholly isolated to the US firm, so even if PwC in your country acquired some portion of the former Arthur Andersen business, it's highly unlikely that it had anything to do with Enron.

Now, if you're talking PwC Japan and the problems that go back years to ChuoAoyama, Aarata, or PwC's Japanese Affiliate Kyoto Audit Corp or other audit issues in Japan - well, those are wholly separate issues and have nothing to do with Andersen since KMPG acquired most of Andersen in Japan. Japan is one of the few countries where PwC has had bubbling troubles over the past 15 year since Andersen's collapse.

Of course, R48, everyone knows what a "sphygmomanometer" so no need to say a "blood pressure monitor" to the little people.