F
Fred Bloggs
Guest
Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
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F
Fred Bloggs
Guest
On Tuesday, January 25, 2022 at 12:37:34 PM UTC-5, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/victoriavouloumanos/people-are-sharing-famous-companies-that-went-bankrupt
> Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/victoriavouloumanos/people-are-sharing-famous-companies-that-went-bankrupt
G
Gerhard Hoffmann
Guest
Am 25.01.22 um 18:40 schrieb Fred Bloggs:
I can\'t believe they have forgotten Kodak.
They invented digital photography and locked it away until all
others were better.
$25B over 20 years for development and not a single product.
Gerhard
(We happened to have a TV docu on this just a few hours ago)
On Tuesday, January 25, 2022 at 12:37:34 PM UTC-5, Fred Bloggs wrote:
Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/victoriavouloumanos/people-are-sharing-famous-companies-that-went-bankrupt
I can\'t believe they have forgotten Kodak.
They invented digital photography and locked it away until all
others were better.
$25B over 20 years for development and not a single product.
Gerhard
(We happened to have a TV docu on this just a few hours ago)
S
server
Guest
On Tue, 25 Jan 2022 18:53:28 +0100, Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de>
wrote:
People are so afraid to kill their traditional products that they let
other people do it for them.
Of course, the cost-per-color-photograph has dropped by about 1000:1.
--
I yam what I yam - Popeye
wrote:
Am 25.01.22 um 18:40 schrieb Fred Bloggs:
On Tuesday, January 25, 2022 at 12:37:34 PM UTC-5, Fred Bloggs wrote:
Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/victoriavouloumanos/people-are-sharing-famous-companies-that-went-bankrupt
I can\'t believe they have forgotten Kodak.
They invented digital photography and locked it away until all
others were better.
$25B over 20 years for development and not a single product.
Gerhard
(We happened to have a TV docu on this just a few hours ago)
People are so afraid to kill their traditional products that they let
other people do it for them.
Of course, the cost-per-color-photograph has dropped by about 1000:1.
--
I yam what I yam - Popeye
S
server
Guest
jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote in
news:sle0vgl4dgs65cp117md6gjf8qavtt3cag@4ax.com:
Just look at the petrol industry. Exxon has/had higher profits
than anyone at one time. They should have embraced alternative power
decades ago. Their lacking will not likely kill them because there
will be a perpetual need for petrol products, but they will not be
able to share nor command the new energy age because of stupid twerps
like Perry.
Y\'all dumb motherfuckers dropped the ball. Despite all the smart
industry in Texas, oil is not one of them. Sadly, we let them claim
to OWN the oil they suck up and refine. I think prices should be
tamped down by the feds. A billion dollars a day because we all need
the juice. So sad... So fucking greedy.
news:sle0vgl4dgs65cp117md6gjf8qavtt3cag@4ax.com:
On Tue, 25 Jan 2022 18:53:28 +0100, Gerhard Hoffmann
dk4xp@arcor.de> wrote:
Am 25.01.22 um 18:40 schrieb Fred Bloggs:
On Tuesday, January 25, 2022 at 12:37:34 PM UTC-5, Fred Bloggs
wrote:
Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/victoriavouloumanos/people-are-sharing-f
amous-companies-that-went-bankrupt
I can\'t believe they have forgotten Kodak.
They invented digital photography and locked it away until all
others were better.
$25B over 20 years for development and not a single product.
Gerhard
(We happened to have a TV docu on this just a few hours ago)
People are so afraid to kill their traditional products that they
let other people do it for them.
Of course, the cost-per-color-photograph has dropped by about
1000:1.
Just look at the petrol industry. Exxon has/had higher profits
than anyone at one time. They should have embraced alternative power
decades ago. Their lacking will not likely kill them because there
will be a perpetual need for petrol products, but they will not be
able to share nor command the new energy age because of stupid twerps
like Perry.
Y\'all dumb motherfuckers dropped the ball. Despite all the smart
industry in Texas, oil is not one of them. Sadly, we let them claim
to OWN the oil they suck up and refine. I think prices should be
tamped down by the feds. A billion dollars a day because we all need
the juice. So sad... So fucking greedy.
C
Cydrome Leader
Guest
Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de> wrote:
Nothing was locked away. Kodak\'s line of professional digital cameras were
amazing products, and in some respects have superior usability and
software to anything being made now.
Granted, this product line wasn\'t going to bring in billions of dollars,
but it took nikon many, many years to even catch up. Kodak sort of gave up
once they no longer had a source of good SLR bodies as Canon and Nikon
stopped supplying them. In tandem to the pro like, they sold consumer
cameras that were pretty solid for the time which were made by Chinon,
later bought by Kodak. There wasn\'t really anything special about cameras
made the early 2000s by them though. The canon elph series sort of nailed
it for a compact digital camera that produced good images and was
intuitive to use.
The rest of kodak, yeah, pretty stupid with standard playbook of sell
everything of value until nothing is left. Motorola did the same thing.
Every business unit they sold off it doing just fine these days.
Am 25.01.22 um 18:40 schrieb Fred Bloggs:
On Tuesday, January 25, 2022 at 12:37:34 PM UTC-5, Fred Bloggs wrote:
Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/victoriavouloumanos/people-are-sharing-famous-companies-that-went-bankrupt
I can\'t believe they have forgotten Kodak.
They invented digital photography and locked it away until all
others were better.
Nothing was locked away. Kodak\'s line of professional digital cameras were
amazing products, and in some respects have superior usability and
software to anything being made now.
Granted, this product line wasn\'t going to bring in billions of dollars,
but it took nikon many, many years to even catch up. Kodak sort of gave up
once they no longer had a source of good SLR bodies as Canon and Nikon
stopped supplying them. In tandem to the pro like, they sold consumer
cameras that were pretty solid for the time which were made by Chinon,
later bought by Kodak. There wasn\'t really anything special about cameras
made the early 2000s by them though. The canon elph series sort of nailed
it for a compact digital camera that produced good images and was
intuitive to use.
The rest of kodak, yeah, pretty stupid with standard playbook of sell
everything of value until nothing is left. Motorola did the same thing.
Every business unit they sold off it doing just fine these days.
$25B over 20 years for development and not a single product.
Gerhard
(We happened to have a TV docu on this just a few hours ago)
A
Anthony William Sloman
Guest
On Wednesday, January 26, 2022 at 4:37:34 AM UTC+11, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
Lintech - in Cambridge UK - made the first purpose built
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_beam_prober
and did well for a few years. Motorola said that their machine knocked three months off the development of the original 68k processor.
The boss - Graham Plows - was always more interested in making the machine easier to sell than easy to use. This didn\'t make his engineers (or his customers) very happy. One of his engineers - Neil Richardson - got hired away by Fairchild, and ended up developing a better electron-beam prober for Schlumberger. It wasn\'t much different, but it was easier to use and more reliable
As soon as it hit the market. Lintech didn\'t make another sale and shut down after they\'d shipped the last machine that had been ordered before Schlumberger entered the market. I had a ringside seat, and knew the people involved.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
> Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
Lintech - in Cambridge UK - made the first purpose built
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_beam_prober
and did well for a few years. Motorola said that their machine knocked three months off the development of the original 68k processor.
The boss - Graham Plows - was always more interested in making the machine easier to sell than easy to use. This didn\'t make his engineers (or his customers) very happy. One of his engineers - Neil Richardson - got hired away by Fairchild, and ended up developing a better electron-beam prober for Schlumberger. It wasn\'t much different, but it was easier to use and more reliable
As soon as it hit the market. Lintech didn\'t make another sale and shut down after they\'d shipped the last machine that had been ordered before Schlumberger entered the market. I had a ringside seat, and knew the people involved.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
S
server
Guest
Cydrome Leader <presence@MUNGEpanix.com> wrote in
news:ssq1qh$grr$1@reader1.panix.com:
Between Kodak and Polaroid, the entire city of Rochester folded up.
One could walk down the main street and walk past a bank with a sign
that said \"Your Name Here\" on it. They are recovering a bit now, but
the city will not likely be anything like it once was for some time
to come.
news:ssq1qh$grr$1@reader1.panix.com:
Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de> wrote:
Am 25.01.22 um 18:40 schrieb Fred Bloggs:
On Tuesday, January 25, 2022 at 12:37:34 PM UTC-5, Fred Bloggs
wrote:
Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/victoriavouloumanos/people-are-sharing-f
amous-companies-that-went-bankrupt
I can\'t believe they have forgotten Kodak.
They invented digital photography and locked it away until all
others were better.
Nothing was locked away. Kodak\'s line of professional digital
cameras were amazing products, and in some respects have superior
usability and software to anything being made now.
Granted, this product line wasn\'t going to bring in billions of
dollars, but it took nikon many, many years to even catch up.
Kodak sort of gave up once they no longer had a source of good SLR
bodies as Canon and Nikon stopped supplying them. In tandem to the
pro like, they sold consumer cameras that were pretty solid for
the time which were made by Chinon, later bought by Kodak. There
wasn\'t really anything special about cameras made the early 2000s
by them though. The canon elph series sort of nailed it for a
compact digital camera that produced good images and was intuitive
to use.
The rest of kodak, yeah, pretty stupid with standard playbook of
sell everything of value until nothing is left. Motorola did the
same thing. Every business unit they sold off it doing just fine
these days.
$25B over 20 years for development and not a single product.
Gerhard
(We happened to have a TV docu on this just a few hours ago)
Between Kodak and Polaroid, the entire city of Rochester folded up.
One could walk down the main street and walk past a bank with a sign
that said \"Your Name Here\" on it. They are recovering a bit now, but
the city will not likely be anything like it once was for some time
to come.
F
Fred Bloggs
Guest
On Tuesday, January 25, 2022 at 6:41:11 PM UTC-5, Cydrome Leader wrote:
Right, I bough one sometime around 1996. It cost about 30% more than comparable cameras, but I considered it to be worth it because it was backed by a high performance company. It did not disappoint, it was an excellent product.
Gerhard Hoffmann <dk...@arcor.de> wrote:
Am 25.01.22 um 18:40 schrieb Fred Bloggs:
On Tuesday, January 25, 2022 at 12:37:34 PM UTC-5, Fred Bloggs wrote:
Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/victoriavouloumanos/people-are-sharing-famous-companies-that-went-bankrupt
I can\'t believe they have forgotten Kodak.
They invented digital photography and locked it away until all
others were better.
Nothing was locked away. Kodak\'s line of professional digital cameras were
amazing products, and in some respects have superior usability and
software to anything being made now.
Granted, this product line wasn\'t going to bring in billions of dollars,
but it took nikon many, many years to even catch up. Kodak sort of gave up
once they no longer had a source of good SLR bodies as Canon and Nikon
stopped supplying them. In tandem to the pro like, they sold consumer
cameras that were pretty solid for the time which were made by Chinon,
later bought by Kodak. There wasn\'t really anything special about cameras
made the early 2000s by them though. The canon elph series sort of nailed
it for a compact digital camera that produced good images and was
intuitive to use.
Right, I bough one sometime around 1996. It cost about 30% more than comparable cameras, but I considered it to be worth it because it was backed by a high performance company. It did not disappoint, it was an excellent product.
The rest of kodak, yeah, pretty stupid with standard playbook of sell
everything of value until nothing is left. Motorola did the same thing.
Every business unit they sold off it doing just fine these days.
$25B over 20 years for development and not a single product.
Gerhard
(We happened to have a TV docu on this just a few hours ago)
B
bitrex
Guest
On 1/25/2022 12:37 PM, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
America Online, it could never seem to find a way to break out of its
dial-up model into the full social media market segment.
It had a leg-up on all the others but couldn\'t really figure out what to
do with people who had broadband other than try to throw ads at them,
but without the benefit of any desirable content to go with it.
> Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
America Online, it could never seem to find a way to break out of its
dial-up model into the full social media market segment.
It had a leg-up on all the others but couldn\'t really figure out what to
do with people who had broadband other than try to throw ads at them,
but without the benefit of any desirable content to go with it.
B
bitrex
Guest
On 1/25/2022 6:41 PM, Cydrome Leader wrote:
I think Kodak\'s big revenue stream was from consumer film sales, and
consumer film processing. There were basically two suppliers for
whatever consumer-grade film-roll camera you had in the early 90s, Kodak
or Fujifilm.
You still got your vacation pictures processed at a drug store kiosk in
1996, and consumer digital cameras were a $1000-equivalent-2022-dollars
curiosity. In 2006 consumer digital cameras were commodities and CCDs
that were good enough were already being included in many cell phones,
and high-end cell phones were getting 5MP cameras a year or two after that.
Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de> wrote:
Am 25.01.22 um 18:40 schrieb Fred Bloggs:
On Tuesday, January 25, 2022 at 12:37:34 PM UTC-5, Fred Bloggs wrote:
Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/victoriavouloumanos/people-are-sharing-famous-companies-that-went-bankrupt
I can\'t believe they have forgotten Kodak.
They invented digital photography and locked it away until all
others were better.
Nothing was locked away. Kodak\'s line of professional digital cameras were
amazing products, and in some respects have superior usability and
software to anything being made now.
Granted, this product line wasn\'t going to bring in billions of dollars,
but it took nikon many, many years to even catch up. Kodak sort of gave up
once they no longer had a source of good SLR bodies as Canon and Nikon
stopped supplying them. In tandem to the pro like, they sold consumer
cameras that were pretty solid for the time which were made by Chinon,
later bought by Kodak. There wasn\'t really anything special about cameras
made the early 2000s by them though. The canon elph series sort of nailed
it for a compact digital camera that produced good images and was
intuitive to use.
The rest of kodak, yeah, pretty stupid with standard playbook of sell
everything of value until nothing is left. Motorola did the same thing.
Every business unit they sold off it doing just fine these days.
I think Kodak\'s big revenue stream was from consumer film sales, and
consumer film processing. There were basically two suppliers for
whatever consumer-grade film-roll camera you had in the early 90s, Kodak
or Fujifilm.
You still got your vacation pictures processed at a drug store kiosk in
1996, and consumer digital cameras were a $1000-equivalent-2022-dollars
curiosity. In 2006 consumer digital cameras were commodities and CCDs
that were good enough were already being included in many cell phones,
and high-end cell phones were getting 5MP cameras a year or two after that.
B
bitrex
Guest
On 1/25/2022 8:23 PM, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
Shockley Semiconductor, if Shockley\'s genes made him so smart why didn\'t
his company make any money.
On Wednesday, January 26, 2022 at 4:37:34 AM UTC+11, Fred Bloggs wrote:
Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
Lintech - in Cambridge UK - made the first purpose built
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_beam_prober
and did well for a few years. Motorola said that their machine knocked three months off the development of the original 68k processor.
The boss - Graham Plows - was always more interested in making the machine easier to sell than easy to use. This didn\'t make his engineers (or his customers) very happy. One of his engineers - Neil Richardson - got hired away by Fairchild, and ended up developing a better electron-beam prober for Schlumberger. It wasn\'t much different, but it was easier to use and more reliable
As soon as it hit the market. Lintech didn\'t make another sale and shut down after they\'d shipped the last machine that had been ordered before Schlumberger entered the market. I had a ringside seat, and knew the people involved.
Shockley Semiconductor, if Shockley\'s genes made him so smart why didn\'t
his company make any money.
F
Fred Bloggs
Guest
On Thursday, January 27, 2022 at 12:48:35 AM UTC-5, bitrex wrote:
He was a sociopath.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight
On 1/25/2022 8:23 PM, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Wednesday, January 26, 2022 at 4:37:34 AM UTC+11, Fred Bloggs wrote:
Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
Lintech - in Cambridge UK - made the first purpose built
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_beam_prober
and did well for a few years. Motorola said that their machine knocked three months off the development of the original 68k processor.
The boss - Graham Plows - was always more interested in making the machine easier to sell than easy to use. This didn\'t make his engineers (or his customers) very happy. One of his engineers - Neil Richardson - got hired away by Fairchild, and ended up developing a better electron-beam prober for Schlumberger. It wasn\'t much different, but it was easier to use and more reliable
As soon as it hit the market. Lintech didn\'t make another sale and shut down after they\'d shipped the last machine that had been ordered before Schlumberger entered the market. I had a ringside seat, and knew the people involved.
Shockley Semiconductor, if Shockley\'s genes made him so smart why didn\'t
his company make any money.
He was a sociopath.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight
C
Cydrome Leader
Guest
bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
Yup, and pretty much all the major labs were owned by Kodak anyways.
In all fairness, nobody has ever answered what kodak should have done, even in
hindsight. They primarily produced a consumer product that was going to go away,
one way or another. The replacement products also went away. I can almost excuse
their implosion, unlike Motorola. Semiconductors and phones never went obsolete.
The only thing I can think of is just drop the consumer products and live on as
their sold-off divisions do making industrial stuff for the printing industry.
They did the reverse- sell all the units that could continue to produce products
to prop up the failing film unit.
The only typewritter company still in business is IBM, but they never made cheap
(price not quality) consumer products, so their transition was easier and
possible.
I still think Texas Instruments is the model of a clever company that has always
been able to adapt to the times. They\'ve jettisoned entire lines of products, but
it was always at the right time, and there was always something new to take its
place.
On 1/25/2022 6:41 PM, Cydrome Leader wrote:
Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de> wrote:
Am 25.01.22 um 18:40 schrieb Fred Bloggs:
On Tuesday, January 25, 2022 at 12:37:34 PM UTC-5, Fred Bloggs wrote:
Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/victoriavouloumanos/people-are-sharing-famous-companies-that-went-bankrupt
I can\'t believe they have forgotten Kodak.
They invented digital photography and locked it away until all
others were better.
Nothing was locked away. Kodak\'s line of professional digital cameras were
amazing products, and in some respects have superior usability and
software to anything being made now.
Granted, this product line wasn\'t going to bring in billions of dollars,
but it took nikon many, many years to even catch up. Kodak sort of gave up
once they no longer had a source of good SLR bodies as Canon and Nikon
stopped supplying them. In tandem to the pro like, they sold consumer
cameras that were pretty solid for the time which were made by Chinon,
later bought by Kodak. There wasn\'t really anything special about cameras
made the early 2000s by them though. The canon elph series sort of nailed
it for a compact digital camera that produced good images and was
intuitive to use.
The rest of kodak, yeah, pretty stupid with standard playbook of sell
everything of value until nothing is left. Motorola did the same thing.
Every business unit they sold off it doing just fine these days.
I think Kodak\'s big revenue stream was from consumer film sales, and
consumer film processing. There were basically two suppliers for
whatever consumer-grade film-roll camera you had in the early 90s, Kodak
or Fujifilm.
Yup, and pretty much all the major labs were owned by Kodak anyways.
You still got your vacation pictures processed at a drug store kiosk in
1996, and consumer digital cameras were a $1000-equivalent-2022-dollars
curiosity. In 2006 consumer digital cameras were commodities and CCDs
that were good enough were already being included in many cell phones,
and high-end cell phones were getting 5MP cameras a year or two after that.
In all fairness, nobody has ever answered what kodak should have done, even in
hindsight. They primarily produced a consumer product that was going to go away,
one way or another. The replacement products also went away. I can almost excuse
their implosion, unlike Motorola. Semiconductors and phones never went obsolete.
The only thing I can think of is just drop the consumer products and live on as
their sold-off divisions do making industrial stuff for the printing industry.
They did the reverse- sell all the units that could continue to produce products
to prop up the failing film unit.
The only typewritter company still in business is IBM, but they never made cheap
(price not quality) consumer products, so their transition was easier and
possible.
I still think Texas Instruments is the model of a clever company that has always
been able to adapt to the times. They\'ve jettisoned entire lines of products, but
it was always at the right time, and there was always something new to take its
place.
B
bitrex
Guest
On 1/27/2022 12:14 PM, Cydrome Leader wrote:
I don\'t know either. I believe revenues from film sales and processing
were very good in the mid 90s; the population had grown and the economy
was doing pretty good and aside from Fujifilm what else was the consumer
gonna do if they wanted to snap pictures?
I expect the last thing anyone expects is for a business model to be on
the verge of collapse right when it\'s making more money than most
involved can remember. Fuji was a big zaibatsu in the Japanese style
though they had their fingers in many pies, already, difficult to see
Kodak rapidly becoming a big player in some other consumer electronics
segment or petrochemicals or what have you.
<https://www.amazon.com/Microchip-Idea-Genesis-Revolution-Created/dp/0738205613/>
The claim is that TI and Fairchild were always thinking two or three
steps ahead of the competition, and in the old days at least, Fairchild
was perhaps better at this even than TI was.
But even in nominally capitalist societies it seems rare that many will
really love you for doing that; shareholders and associated industries
and the participants Moms and Dads, even, weren\'t big into what they
were doing. \"You got a good thing going! You just figured out a reliable
way to make a transistor using process A and sell them at $15 each,
people are clamoring to get them even at that price but you\'ve hardly
even produced that many and you\'re already talking about plan B, making
some new thing you\'re going to sell at a _loss_? WTF\"
bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
On 1/25/2022 6:41 PM, Cydrome Leader wrote:
Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de> wrote:
Am 25.01.22 um 18:40 schrieb Fred Bloggs:
On Tuesday, January 25, 2022 at 12:37:34 PM UTC-5, Fred Bloggs wrote:
Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/victoriavouloumanos/people-are-sharing-famous-companies-that-went-bankrupt
I can\'t believe they have forgotten Kodak.
They invented digital photography and locked it away until all
others were better.
Nothing was locked away. Kodak\'s line of professional digital cameras were
amazing products, and in some respects have superior usability and
software to anything being made now.
Granted, this product line wasn\'t going to bring in billions of dollars,
but it took nikon many, many years to even catch up. Kodak sort of gave up
once they no longer had a source of good SLR bodies as Canon and Nikon
stopped supplying them. In tandem to the pro like, they sold consumer
cameras that were pretty solid for the time which were made by Chinon,
later bought by Kodak. There wasn\'t really anything special about cameras
made the early 2000s by them though. The canon elph series sort of nailed
it for a compact digital camera that produced good images and was
intuitive to use.
The rest of kodak, yeah, pretty stupid with standard playbook of sell
everything of value until nothing is left. Motorola did the same thing.
Every business unit they sold off it doing just fine these days.
I think Kodak\'s big revenue stream was from consumer film sales, and
consumer film processing. There were basically two suppliers for
whatever consumer-grade film-roll camera you had in the early 90s, Kodak
or Fujifilm.
Yup, and pretty much all the major labs were owned by Kodak anyways.
You still got your vacation pictures processed at a drug store kiosk in
1996, and consumer digital cameras were a $1000-equivalent-2022-dollars
curiosity. In 2006 consumer digital cameras were commodities and CCDs
that were good enough were already being included in many cell phones,
and high-end cell phones were getting 5MP cameras a year or two after that.
In all fairness, nobody has ever answered what kodak should have done, even in
hindsight. They primarily produced a consumer product that was going to go away,
one way or another. The replacement products also went away. I can almost excuse
their implosion, unlike Motorola. Semiconductors and phones never went obsolete.
I don\'t know either. I believe revenues from film sales and processing
were very good in the mid 90s; the population had grown and the economy
was doing pretty good and aside from Fujifilm what else was the consumer
gonna do if they wanted to snap pictures?
I expect the last thing anyone expects is for a business model to be on
the verge of collapse right when it\'s making more money than most
involved can remember. Fuji was a big zaibatsu in the Japanese style
though they had their fingers in many pies, already, difficult to see
Kodak rapidly becoming a big player in some other consumer electronics
segment or petrochemicals or what have you.
The only thing I can think of is just drop the consumer products and live on as
their sold-off divisions do making industrial stuff for the printing industry.
They did the reverse- sell all the units that could continue to produce products
to prop up the failing film unit.
The only typewritter company still in business is IBM, but they never made cheap
(price not quality) consumer products, so their transition was easier and
possible.
I still think Texas Instruments is the model of a clever company that has always
been able to adapt to the times. They\'ve jettisoned entire lines of products, but
it was always at the right time, and there was always something new to take its
place.
<https://www.amazon.com/Microchip-Idea-Genesis-Revolution-Created/dp/0738205613/>
The claim is that TI and Fairchild were always thinking two or three
steps ahead of the competition, and in the old days at least, Fairchild
was perhaps better at this even than TI was.
But even in nominally capitalist societies it seems rare that many will
really love you for doing that; shareholders and associated industries
and the participants Moms and Dads, even, weren\'t big into what they
were doing. \"You got a good thing going! You just figured out a reliable
way to make a transistor using process A and sell them at $15 each,
people are clamoring to get them even at that price but you\'ve hardly
even produced that many and you\'re already talking about plan B, making
some new thing you\'re going to sell at a _loss_? WTF\"
B
bitrex
Guest
On 1/27/2022 12:49 PM, bitrex wrote:
Incidentally a number of the claims in the first reviews of that title
are fairly accurate but it\'s not a one star book, maybe a three-star. It
was written by a business-guy, not an engineer. And there are some odd
choices about who to include like he dotes on An Wang a lot but DEC is
given short shrift. /shrug
I still think Texas Instruments is the model of a clever company that
has always
been able to adapt to the times. They\'ve jettisoned entire lines of
products, but
it was always at the right time, and there was always something new to
take its
place.
https://www.amazon.com/Microchip-Idea-Genesis-Revolution-Created/dp/0738205613/
The claim is that TI and Fairchild were always thinking two or three
steps ahead of the competition, and in the old days at least, Fairchild
was perhaps better at this even than TI was.
Incidentally a number of the claims in the first reviews of that title
are fairly accurate but it\'s not a one star book, maybe a three-star. It
was written by a business-guy, not an engineer. And there are some odd
choices about who to include like he dotes on An Wang a lot but DEC is
given short shrift. /shrug
B
bitrex
Guest
On 1/27/2022 10:32 AM, Fred Bloggs wrote:
Seems likely, from what I\'ve read he spent more time being paranoid
about whether someone was trying to steal from him than actually working
towards having something worth stealing.
On Thursday, January 27, 2022 at 12:48:35 AM UTC-5, bitrex wrote:
On 1/25/2022 8:23 PM, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Wednesday, January 26, 2022 at 4:37:34 AM UTC+11, Fred Bloggs wrote:
Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
Lintech - in Cambridge UK - made the first purpose built
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_beam_prober
and did well for a few years. Motorola said that their machine knocked three months off the development of the original 68k processor.
The boss - Graham Plows - was always more interested in making the machine easier to sell than easy to use. This didn\'t make his engineers (or his customers) very happy. One of his engineers - Neil Richardson - got hired away by Fairchild, and ended up developing a better electron-beam prober for Schlumberger. It wasn\'t much different, but it was easier to use and more reliable
As soon as it hit the market. Lintech didn\'t make another sale and shut down after they\'d shipped the last machine that had been ordered before Schlumberger entered the market. I had a ringside seat, and knew the people involved.
Shockley Semiconductor, if Shockley\'s genes made him so smart why didn\'t
his company make any money.
He was a sociopath.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight
Seems likely, from what I\'ve read he spent more time being paranoid
about whether someone was trying to steal from him than actually working
towards having something worth stealing.
B
bitrex
Guest
On 1/27/2022 10:32 AM, Fred Bloggs wrote:
Imagine how big a PITA you have to be if even Robert Noyce can\'t stand
you, who AFAIK never exactly had a reputation as a \"laid back and
relaxed\"-type of guy.
It\'s like that time Dave Mustaine of Megadeth was talking about Axl Rose
of Guns n Roses and said something like \"He\'s just...he\'s just a really
self-absorbed person. He won\'t listen to anyone.\" this was Dave Mustaine
saying this.
On Thursday, January 27, 2022 at 12:48:35 AM UTC-5, bitrex wrote:
On 1/25/2022 8:23 PM, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Wednesday, January 26, 2022 at 4:37:34 AM UTC+11, Fred Bloggs wrote:
Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
Lintech - in Cambridge UK - made the first purpose built
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_beam_prober
and did well for a few years. Motorola said that their machine knocked three months off the development of the original 68k processor.
The boss - Graham Plows - was always more interested in making the machine easier to sell than easy to use. This didn\'t make his engineers (or his customers) very happy. One of his engineers - Neil Richardson - got hired away by Fairchild, and ended up developing a better electron-beam prober for Schlumberger. It wasn\'t much different, but it was easier to use and more reliable
As soon as it hit the market. Lintech didn\'t make another sale and shut down after they\'d shipped the last machine that had been ordered before Schlumberger entered the market. I had a ringside seat, and knew the people involved.
Shockley Semiconductor, if Shockley\'s genes made him so smart why didn\'t
his company make any money.
He was a sociopath.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traitorous_eight
Imagine how big a PITA you have to be if even Robert Noyce can\'t stand
you, who AFAIK never exactly had a reputation as a \"laid back and
relaxed\"-type of guy.
It\'s like that time Dave Mustaine of Megadeth was talking about Axl Rose
of Guns n Roses and said something like \"He\'s just...he\'s just a really
self-absorbed person. He won\'t listen to anyone.\" this was Dave Mustaine
saying this.
B
bitrex
Guest
On 1/25/2022 1:02 PM, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
Nowadays, other people don\'t even have to work too hard at the killing:
<https://i.redd.it/lzp2zv0mk4e81.jpg>
> Of course, the cost-per-color-photograph has dropped by about 1000:1.
On Tue, 25 Jan 2022 18:53:28 +0100, Gerhard Hoffmann <dk4xp@arcor.de
wrote:
Am 25.01.22 um 18:40 schrieb Fred Bloggs:
On Tuesday, January 25, 2022 at 12:37:34 PM UTC-5, Fred Bloggs wrote:
Xerox was poised to take over the world, and they blew it.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/victoriavouloumanos/people-are-sharing-famous-companies-that-went-bankrupt
I can\'t believe they have forgotten Kodak.
They invented digital photography and locked it away until all
others were better.
$25B over 20 years for development and not a single product.
Gerhard
(We happened to have a TV docu on this just a few hours ago)
People are so afraid to kill their traditional products that they let
other people do it for them.
Nowadays, other people don\'t even have to work too hard at the killing:
<https://i.redd.it/lzp2zv0mk4e81.jpg>
> Of course, the cost-per-color-photograph has dropped by about 1000:1.
A
Anthony William Sloman
Guest
On Friday, January 28, 2022 at 4:14:11 AM UTC+11, Cydrome Leader wrote:
They aren\'t what they were, and their activities on the standards groups that I knew about was all about protecting their market share, rather than getting better standards.
> I still think Texas Instruments is the model of a clever company that has always been able to adapt to the times.
They\'ve always been a crooked company, in much the same mold, always ready to shaft their customers. They have never been all that innovative.
> They\'ve jettisoned entire lines of products, but it was always at the right time, and there was always something new to take its place.
Something relatively cheap and nasty ...
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney
bitrex <us...@example.net> wrote:
On 1/25/2022 6:41 PM, Cydrome Leader wrote:
Gerhard Hoffmann <dk...@arcor.de> wrote:
Am 25.01.22 um 18:40 schrieb Fred Bloggs:
On Tuesday, January 25, 2022 at 12:37:34 PM UTC-5, Fred Bloggs wrote:
The only typewriter company still in business is IBM, but they never made cheap (price not quality) consumer products, so their transition was easier and possible.
They aren\'t what they were, and their activities on the standards groups that I knew about was all about protecting their market share, rather than getting better standards.
> I still think Texas Instruments is the model of a clever company that has always been able to adapt to the times.
They\'ve always been a crooked company, in much the same mold, always ready to shaft their customers. They have never been all that innovative.
> They\'ve jettisoned entire lines of products, but it was always at the right time, and there was always something new to take its place.
Something relatively cheap and nasty ...
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney