Week2-Hu

In the past month, Kodak, the name behind many photographic moments in our lives, succumbed to bankruptcy. Photography is still very much alive, but Kodak has been in trouble. Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on January 19th. Not surprisingly, their stock dropped 35%. But really, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Currently, digital camera has been the mainstream of photography. Kodak, which is famous for film-based camera, cannot follow the fashion and fail to be alive in the modern camera competition.  In my opinion, Kodak’s failure is due to its anti-development. When almost every company is developing its digital technology, Kodak is still use lots of money to renew its roll film and film-based camera technology. As a creation, it put plenty of efforts to develop the one-time film-based camera. Even in 2004, Kodak invested 40 million to start a one-time film-based camera factory in Xiamen, China. Because the decisions of Kodak cannot follow the fashion and are always out of date, Kodak loses most customers and is in trouble now.

In the old days, photography is a professional thing. At that time, most of us had no chance to try it by ourselves. Kodak helped camera popular and helped us to buy our own cameras. But now, it fails to develop and head toward bankruptcy. Kodak’s story tells us that we must keep trying new technology and follow the fashion, or you will fail. Even you are Kodak.


Link: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-13/kodak-said-to-hold-talks-with-citigroup-on-bankruptcy-financing.html