Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/08/16
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]In a message dated 8/16/03 7:38:14 PM Pacific Daylight Time, leicaman@sympatico.ca writes: > Isn't Polaroid bankrupt? - ----------------------------- Technically yes. But the court ordered the assets of Polaroid sold off to other outfits, which continue the Polaroid line. From what I read, Polaroid bought up other outfits which forced them into deep debt. Just bad business decisions at a time when the industry was changing. Oddly enough, Polaroid jumped into digital imaging rather early. They made a very good negative scanner. Even now, the Polaroid brand markets lower end digital cameras. Polaroid patents are still valuable. Dr. Land would be very sad at his company's descent into bankruptcy. But he bailed out at the right time, albeit under a shadow of doubtful ethics. The odd thing is that Polaroid won a patent infringement case against Kodak. Kodak had to give up their instant camera line. No great loss in perspective. But it seems to have been a Pyrrhic victory, despite the $millions Polaroid received in the settlement and the continuation of their camera and film monopoly. Almost every bureaucracy in the world used Polaroid, ID cameras, from MVB to corporate ID systems. That may still be a lucrative business; altho methinks digital is taking over. The Polaroid P/N system produced very fine B&W negatives reminiscent of earlier processes. They had bad management that didn't stay ahead of the curve. br - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html