How we, the 90’s kids, remember times when our parents used to line us all up or ask us to hold that ‘natural’ pose so they could capture that perfect Kodak moment. Alas, February 9, 2012 marks the day for the demise of that Kodak moment. Eastman Kodak announced this Thursday that it planned to pull the plug on its camera manufacturing. This comes less than a month after the one time technology pioneer filed for bankruptcy in the USA on January 19 of this year.
This is, without any doubts, the end of an era but it is also nothing like a huge surprise as the demise of conventional technologies is evident in this world of fast paced, rapidly evolving gadgets and gizmos. The company had been in financial troubles since the 1990’s when the sale of photographic film reduced owing to the introduction of digital cameras. Since the past half a dozen years camera phones have contributed only to speed up the demise of the traditional photographic techniques. What is ironic, however, is that Kodak was the ‘inventor’ of the digital camera itself!
Reuters described the demise of Kodak while adding that “the company was one of the biggest corporate casualties of the digital age as it failed to quickly embrace modern technologies such as digital photography, which it invented in 1975.”
While Kodak itself has pulled out of manufacturing cameras and digital photography equipment, the company intends to license out its brand name to interested parties, according to the spokesperson for the destitute digital age corporation.
The remaining one-third of the company’s business includes desktop printers, dry lab systems, photo kiosks and online as well as retail photo printing. The company also intends to keep honoring its after sales services to its camera owners even after it has finished its pull out this June.
