While not new news, it is official the Kodak is now in Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

An icon of the photo industry for years has finally done in the one-time industry leader.

What is interesting is Kodak held the first patents for digital photo technology and yet opted to stick with film due to the high profit margins.

Interesting is that another high-profile U.S. company and leader in video technology made similar error in misreading the consumer market.

Ampex was the first to produce a video recorder. They believed that the consumer would never adapt to video and dispose of their Kodak Instamatic 8mm film recorders.

Better living through technology... or, is that better living through chemistry???

Failure to innovate caught up with them.

I worked for Sperry Univac for about 10 years in the '70s and '80s.

Univac actually had the first patents on the modem and didn't see any commercial use for them so they gave the patents to AT&T.

The way I heard it was a Kodak engineer from R&D developed the first digital camera chips. The Kodak brass said we are a film company not a computer company.

I have noticed in my line of work ( I work biz to biz ) that a lot of back east companies are resistant to change.
On the flip side when they turned the map on edge all the flakes fell to California <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

Don't forget about Epson basically inventing the GUI, then letting the Microsoft guys come in and, um... borrow it.

There was a show I watched a few years ago about that. It's crazy the kind of stuff that was thought up, then given or thrown away because someone's boss lacked the ability to think for themselves and rejected it.

Actually, as I recall, the GUI was more an outcome of Xerox in early 80s. Apple picked it up from there (mid-late 80s) and Microsoft followed. Depending on your definition of "GUI", first MS GUI was Vista; although some accept Windows95/NT as a GUI.

Interestingly, what we know as html began life as a creation of Apple. It was picked up and incorporated into the "internet" by Warners-Lee with his research in Bern, Switzerland to connect disparate computer systems and share information. Yes, that was a few years before Al Gore "invented" the internet.

AOL first surfaced as iVillage, an offering from Apple.

Netscape arose from a research project through the Dept of Energy site in Illinois.

Microsoft Explorer was the original base that spawned Netscape. MS could not "sell" it as it was public domain with the MS Explorer face.

Late 80s and early 90s were some interesting years with the growth of the internet and the publicity battles that raged. Many quality products failed to catch on due to lack of "marketing" support.

Was it Xerox? I'm a big foggy on that stuff, it was a while ago. I guess I remembered that it was a huge household name in paper handling and printing, but only remembered the brand sitting next to me <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

Palo Alto Research Station section of Xerox.

That was a time when I was evaluating different mini-computer systems. Had a chance to play with Wang, AT&T, Data General, Datapoint, Xerox and Sun.

Interesting times.

Yes it was 'Parc Xerox' in Palo Alto. Essentially a Xerox think tank. http://www.parc.com. They even tout pioneering the GUI on their About Page... http://www.parc.com/about/
<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />

Sad, because in my opinion, some of their digital cameras were great. I had a Z650 for about 5 years which took great pics. Also what some consider the "best digital camera in the world" the Leica M9 uses a US made Kodak sensor. I think their marketing/styling was flawed.