Posted on 01/09/2017 10:35:40 AM PST by gaggs
An interesting read about the future…
In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide.
Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt.What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years and, most people won’t see it coming.
(Excerpt) Read more at commonsenseevaluation.com ...
I recall back in the 70s when I was in college AI was all the rage. My profs predicted that in a few years AI would be mainstream and take over the world. Im still waiting. re the article’s predictions: Some are smoke, others maybe and the small number that remain likely. However, there are jobs computers will never do. I say do what you enjoy, if your job disappears remake yourself. Intelligence is something that never goes out of style and no computer can match.
Yep. And I didn’t mean to use OS/2 as a shot against IBM because the evaluated their strategic alternatives and made a conscious decision not to go head-to-head with Microsoft in the operating systme realm and instead started to build up their integrated services business. IBM is a great example of a company that has successfully re-invented itself many times And that decision also freed them up to be one of the first major adopters of Linux, and about 15 years ago they announced they would be investing over $1 billion in Linux development, and has since doubled that amount.
I thought that was your main goal in life:)
I think some universities have been playing around with A.I’s that self-write code. Something about learning machines.
Not sure if that’s gonna experience a significant breakthrough anytime soon though.
Actually , Kodak is experiencing a resurgence in film production and usage.
There are many movie producers that are returning to large rolls of film as they can do more artistic creativity on film that is only moderately successful with digital.
So, they are redeveloping their niche in the 'artsy-fartsy' world; not sure that it will be enough to sustain the production of an era gone bye, but it's a restart.
You are right that they didn't do a timely jump into digital photography, and they paid dearly for it !
“Intelligence is something that never goes out of style and no computer can match.”
As they say, artificial intelligence will never overcome natural stupidity.
>I had a Kodak 5mp digital camera many years ago when that size sensor was new.
>Great camera.
I don’t doubt it, their engineering is generally top notch. However by that point everyone associated Cannon with quality digital cameras, not Kodak.
The effect is known as the Innovator's Dilemma, and there's a book on it.
Basically, established businesses that have a cash-cow such as film refuse to adapt new technology that would take business away from their existing cash cow.
...so Kodak wouldn't push digital because that would have eroded marketshare (scavenged) from their film biz.
Something similar is happening in many other fields. For example, MakeSpace sends bar-coded bins to your house for you to pack, then they pick up the bins, photograph the contents, store it all centrally in one giant warehouse with everyone else, and let you see/recall your stored items back to your house.
Their competition is old...the established mini-storage sites in every city. Well, the mini-storage guys don't want to offer bar-coded, centralized storage, pickup, and delivery because that would scavenge business from their individual storage units.
Newspapers also fought going digital online because that scavenged subscribers from their print biz.
Blockbuster didn't want to stream movies online because that would have taken customers from their video-rental biz.
Of course, the problem with defending the old business is that the new way can knock a company completely out of business if it doesn't adapt. Xerox. Kodak. Heck, try to name a fax-machine company.
Sorry, I read the article. It is total La La Land fantasy. Yes some things will change. But their vision in only 48 months from now? Not a chance in Hell. Sorry.
So do buggy whips :-)
I have to agree, I really miss the free Jeppesen Internet Flight Planner from AOPA, I thought it was the best I ever used.
I think that as the advances follow. Possibilities for more workers in newer sci-fi industries are more possible.
With enough technology and power-productivity, space travel opens up as a new place to work. Deep sea welding might be robotized, but engineers who can repair and service those machines will be needed.
Ships will have robotic captains, but you will still need ports with remote pilots. Robot airplanes might be the next robot car, but you will still need someone to handle the unloading and reloading of parcels and passengers.
Service industry will be important, but it will also be a form of entertainment, because people will be so used to an instant gratification society that they will insist on being entertained by “everything.” If it is not entertaining it will be handled by a touch screen.
Graphics design might pick up more demand, since beauty is difficult to be original and beautiful and programmable at the same time.
I bought a Kodak digital camera several years ago. It was such a POS that we took it back and traded for a Olympus which has worked flawlessly despite much off road abuse.
“...everyone associated Cannon with quality digital cameras...”
Not me! I’m Nikon, all the way. Of course, if I could afford a digital back for my view camera...
“We have already reached it’s min cost becuase a source that only works 8-10 hours a day has to be augmented with 24 hr sources. The math doesn’t allow the delivered price to go lower”
The solution to that is storage. Tesla is already starting to address that with its Powerwall batteries. Others are too.
Cost and capacity are still a big issue but it will happen sooner or later.
[ Kodak was used as the business model example of an institution that refuses to change and adapt, thinking they will always survive, in the film about big brick and mortar churches who are losing congregations and dying everywhere When God Left the Building. If IBM had remained committed to large mainframe computers, and I have friends who worked for them in the old white shirt and blue suit and tie days who tell me there were plenty of people arguing that they should, they’d be on the same museum shelf as Kodak. ]
Kodak is essentially a mirror of Big Government, but unlike Government, Kodak couldn’t make and change the rules to keep themselves in power no matter how inefficient and bloated they became...
Mainframes, mainframe software and associated mainframe peripherals still account some half of IBM’s profits.
Mainframes are about half the cost per user compared to servers.
Not all businesses need the type capacity mainframes (I/O and CPU speed) they are capable of producing. No doubt!
IMHO, the competition forced IBM to change. They wisely answered the call.
I worked in the mainframe (manufacturer’s tech support) industry for 36 years. Mainframes are sweet, sweet machines. The fault tolerance to dynamic configurations are unparalleled by any other platform.
Startups can often avoid the inertia associated with more established companies when the technological plates shift under their feet. In other words, it’s easier to change course in a dinghy than on the Titanic.
Germany and Japan became economic powerhouses because they were essentially rebuilt from the ground up with the newest technology after they wre gutted from the war.
There is almost no landline telephone infrastructure in Somalia. They went directly from tribal drums to cell phones.
Most Kodak consumer digital cameras are like toys, and not good ones at that.
They never made the jump to the high-end or “prosumer” market like almost everyone else did.
Garage sales are littered with those “easy share” cams. I wont even buy the ones that are a dollar.
I think it was back in the late '60s when a TV show aired an episode displaying an invention they said would revolutionize the moving industry.
It seems this guy invented a way to use a thin plastic sheet that covered small items placed on a sheet of cardboard. The items were then vacuum sealed, holding the objects tight and preventing loss/breakage.
We know it today as all those store items that are blister packed - a completely different business application.
Talk about heading off in one direction, only to arrive somewhere else, check out the 1978 TV Mini-series called Connections. As a computer programmer, I found "Faith in Numbers" fascinating - Burke takes us from a pattern to make cams operating Medieval church bells to the 80-column computer card - which, by the way, is the exact size as the old paper money. Thrifty Hollerith did that so they could use the banking equipment to hold the cards.
[subset] When I was in computer programming school in '67, they showed us a clip of Bob Newheart ridiculing Hollerith and the way the lines were oriented: top to bottom, 12, 11, 9-0; smirking that it was crazy and would never work. It was hilarious because he was so wrong. He did a beautiful job and talked as if he was an old pro. I had a lot of respect for him as an actor after that.
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