Resisting change and embracing the status-quo inevitably leads to failure in the technology industry. American Icon Eastman Kodak is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, and it provides investors with an interesting and valuable case study examining the failure of a once profitable contender at the advent of the digital revolution.
Bankruptcy is a final reversal of fortune for the company that actually invented the digital camera in 1975, but failed to embrace and foresee the true game-changer that this technology, and then later the camera-phone, would be for its market.
On September 30th, the company issued a statement declaring that it was not going to declare for bankruptcy, but in the investment world, 'where there is smoke there is fire,' and with Kodak, the building has been burning down for years.
The primary store of value left in this company is its digital photography patents, which are estimated to be worth about $2 Billion, but which no company has yet to reveal an interest in... so probably, in true Kodak style, even these are underestimated by the company.
The company which gave the concept of photography will cease to exist.This raises an important topic of whether technology and tradition can go hand in hand with technical innovations flying faster than the speed of light it has become difficult for even humans to keep up pace with it.No doubt a company of the caliber of Kodak has given up.I remember the old negatives and the Kodak cameras that we used to have.Some of the best memories of my life are inked in Kodak.
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