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soneil 3 days ago

I'm not convinced it was really their strategy on digital that killed them. I mean it's clear their film camera business was a "razor blades" model in support of their film business - then they tried to approach digital the same way, trying to figure out what razor blades they could sell us.

But it was largely working - Kodak were the market leaders[*] in digital cameras right up until the smartphone came out. The market for non-SLR/mirrorless cameras is down >98% from there. They could have owned 100% of that segment and they'd still be a nostalgia marque today.

Digital all but killed the film segment, and then smartphones all but killed their digital segment. They were winning in dead markets.

* In the US, according to some contemporary BusinessWeek article that wikipedia's sourced. But I'm willing to accept that it's within a margin of error of successful in that segment.