Jun 29
Jul 11
Polaroid
business, digital cameras, digital photography, Kodak, Nikon, photography, Polaroid, Polaroid building, Spice Girls, Tech Square, technology, Xerox Comments Off
How did Polaroid end up bankrupt? They’re looking at either selling the company, or filing Chapter 11. They expect to default on over $30m of loan payments in the next few months.
It’s easy to say that they were caught out by digital cameras, but it’s not that simple. I remember the early days of digital photography, around 1996-97. For a while, Polaroid were leaders in the field—the PDC-2000 was well-reviewed, and praised for its outstanding image quality. Later on, Polaroid launched digital cameras at consumer prices that were competitive with those from Nikon, Canon, Kodak, and so on.
They also knew their patents on instant photography were going to expire. So what happened? Why did they throw all their energies at cheap plastic instant cameras with pictures of The Spice Girls and Hello Kitty on them, and ignore digital? Maybe someone will write a book about it, like the various books about how Apple and Xerox made incredibly boneheaded decisions. For now, my guess is that someone high up wasn’t able to demonstrate flexibility.
I miss the Polaroid head office that used to be in Tech Square. And I was sorry when the other Polaroid building on the riverfront had its classic 30s design ruined.
Mar 23
Recessionwatch Update
business, Cisco, Compaq, DaimlerChrysler, Dell, Electrolux, Hewlett-Packard, high-tech, Intel, Lucent, Motorola, Oracle, Sara Lee, Time Warner, Verizon, Whirlpool, Xerox Comments Off
Job losses over the last few weeks:
- Motorola: 4,000 jobs today, for a total of 22,000 since December.
- Lucent: 16,000.
- Verizon: 10,000.
- Nortel: 10,000.
- Compaq: 5,000.
- Intel: 5,000.
- Xerox: 4,000.
- Gateway: 3,000.
- Hewlett-Packard: 1,700.
- Dell: 1,700.
- Amazon: 1,300.
- 3com: 1,200.
- Oracle: 800
It’s also rumored that Sun are planning to ditch 10% of their employees, and Cisco are giving 5-10% of their staff unmatchable targets so they can force them to resign without calling it a layoff.
Conventional wisdom is to say that it’s just a “market correction” as technology stocks fall and overblown high-tech companies downsize. So how about:
- DaimlerChrysler: 26,000.
- Proctor Gamble: 9,600.
- Sara Lee: 7,000.
- Whirlpool: 6,000.
- J.C. Penney: 5,300.
- Compaq: 5,000.
- Xerox: 4,000.
- Schwab: 3,400.
- Time Warner AOL Turner: 2,400.
- Sears: 2,400.
- Electrolux: 2,000.
And don’t forget, the US balance of payments deficit is now the highest it’s been since the 1980s, and expected to get worse.