DailyTech - Quick Note: Kodak Bails on Digital Camera Market

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Gadgets Quick Note: Kodak Bails on Digital Camera Market
Brandon Hill (Blog) - February 9, 2012 12:06 PM

29 comment(s) - last by RU482.. on Feb 10 at 12:43 PM

Kodak also giving up on photo frames and pocket video recorders

It's no secret that photography company Kodak has been down on its luck in recent years. The company, which was once a pioneer in digital photography, found itself unable to compete with more agile competitors like Nikon and Canon. Even more telling is with the rise of smartphones with increasingly better picture/video-capturing capabilities, the market for dedicated point-and-shoot cameras has been steadily eroding; a point that Sony has already conceded.

Given that Kodak digital cameras typically couldn't hold a candle to competition from Nikon, Canon, and Sony, it should come as no surprise that following the company's announcement last month that it was filing for bankruptcy that the next step would be to shutter its digital camera business.

Digital cameras, however, aren't the only casualties -- Kodak will also discontinue pocket video cameras and digital photo frames. These product lines will be phased out during the first half of 2012.

“For some time, Kodak’s strategy has been to improve margins in the capture device business by narrowing our participation in terms of product portfolio, geographies and retail outlets. Today’s announcement is the logical extension of that process, given our analysis of the industry trends,” said Pradeep Jotwani, President, Consumer Businesses, and Kodak Chief Marketing Officer.

Kodak will now focus its energies on its more profitable areas including retail photo printing, desktop inkjet printing, its Kodak Gallery online photo service, and traditional film capture business.

Source: Kodak

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RE: Never inovated

By fic2 on 2/9/2012 1:52:26 PM , Rating: 2

From my experience Kodak cameras were crap. I bought two Kodak digital for relatives - they both broke within a year.
On the other hand I have a Canon SD600 that is so old it can't take SD cards larger than 2G. It sill takes great pictures and I take it everywhere including snowboarding. I have since given a couple of Canons as gifts and the receivers love them.

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RE: Never inovated

By JediJeb on 2/9/2012 6:38:28 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
so old it can't take SD cards larger than 2G

lol I like how that is considered old. My first digital camera was a Kodak which at the time was the best on the market picture quality wise. It had a 3.1 Megapixel sensor and I think 4x optical zoom and the memory card that came with it was a whopping 64MB which I quickly upgraded to a 256MB one. I used that camera for nearly 10 years until I left it in the back of my truck about a year ago and a sudden rain storm killed it :( It always performed flawlessly. But I heard that newer models that were crammed with more features were not as reliable.

I went last week to start looking for a new DSLR and was sad to see that one of my favorite camera makers, Minolta, was no longer in business. I used to be very into photography but with so much work have been out of the loop for several years, have to catch up on everything again, but I am hoping that digital is now near the quality of film for doing large landscape photos and astrophotography.

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RE: Never inovated

By epobirs on 2/9/2012 10:58:46 PM , Rating: 2

I had an early Olympus that used the unfortunately named Smart Media cards. When the first 8 MB cards came out I bought in anticipation for a trip and it killed the camera. Turned out there was a change in the spec and the Olympus firmware took it so badly the camera was bricked and had to be factory repaired.

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RE: Never inovated

By Natch on 2/10/2012 11:31:29 AM , Rating: 2

Fault of the manufacturer, or the user?

I have a 5MP Kodak camera that's 6-7 years old (same SD card limitation as yours), that still functions as well as the day I pulled it out of the box.

I have a pocket compact Kodak, 10MP model that I bought 3 years ago, that shoots 720P video, and is my day to day camera.

IMHO, Kodak made good, inexpensive cameras, and made them well.

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