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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Thursday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In computer news this week 9/06/2006 |
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Traditional
American companies get bit by the razor blade strategy .... The
Gillette safety razor company years ago unknowingly coined a marketing phrase
studied in business schools, known as the “razor blade marketing
strategy”. This
refers to the fact that the company sells its razors cheap, and actually
makes most of its money selling the consumable razor blades that are used in
the razor. A guy might buy one razor and use it for years, ok maybe decades
like some of us packrats, but during that time he’ll
buy hundreds of razor blades. Another
American corporation that had a similar strategy was the Eastman Kodak
company, whose name is synonymous with the Brownie cameras that many of us
grew up with. In the traditional photography marketplace; Kodak had almost a
triple razor blade strategy. They sold the cameras cheap, and made money off selling
the film, selling the
photographic paper, and doing the
film developing. But
somehow – although Kodak looked for other
businesses to expand into, technology delivered a staggering blow to its own
industry, and it was been forced to make severe
layoffs in its work force. It was
the technology of digital photography; cheap high quality cameras that
didn’t use any film at all, just computer memory. I think
digital cameras really took off in the early 1990’s, I can remember
buying my first one at Costco almost as an impulse item, as it was fairly
inexpensive and suited my needs for a very long time. So as
soon as digital cameras became popular, people did 3 things – they stopped
buying film,
they no longer had the need to have their pictures developed, as they could
do that themselves, and they slowly learned that if they actually wanted to
print out a picture, they could buy High quality photo paper at a discount
store for a heck of a lot less than taking them to a photo processing place.
And although Kodak came out with its own digital cameras, so did dozens of
other companies. This brings
up a couple other technology issues: 1. why print photos out?
The
computer screen is the leading place in the world to view photos, so why are you still so old fashioned needing that physical
printout. I can see a couple wallet size ones of the
wife and kids, but you can easily do that yourself, and Windows has wonderful
and dummy proof photo-printing capabilities. and 2. Stop sending these through the internet – put them on your
website – every ISP gives you some web space – and send links to
these pictures to your relatives – not the pictures themselves. So
I’m worried about the future of the Kodak company, but not for the
obvious reason. My
concern is that someday some mountain climber on Mount Everest will actually
find the camera that George Mallory supposedly carried to the peak Mallory's
Kodak Camera in 1924, which
might prove he was the first to summit.
I’ve read that it’s possible the film could be perfectly
preserved in the cold atmosphere.
But what
if they find that camera, and take it to the experts at Kodak, and
there’s no one there anymore? For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2006 MTA Micro
Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbx.html PO Box 31522 Spokane, Wa 99223-1522 (509)624-7230 |
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