Kodak's Patent Spat Threatens Photo Web Sites 171
Alain Williams writes "According to the BBC: 'Kodak claimed it owns patents regarding the display of online images that is being infringed by Shutterfly. The photo-sharing site disputes these claims and has launched a counter suit. But the landmark case could have ramifications for other popular online photo sites such as Yahoo's Flickr and Google's Picasa.'"
Re:Oh how the mighty have fallen... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Kodak Innovation. (Score:4, Informative)
Kodak didn't miss digital - they were even one of the pioneers of digital photography back in the 70s - nothing commercial though.
Kodak is quite successful with their Leaf brand of sensors - they're in high end medium format cameras - Hassalblad, Phase One, and a few other $10,000+ cameras to as high as $50,000 for a camera body - no lens.
Kodak just couldn't get the market penetration into the consumer digital camera market like the Japanese and their Professional camera body just didn't sell. For the low end consumer cameras, Kodak outsources everything. The only thing Kodak about their point and shoot cameras is that name - everything else is just cheap crap.
Film photography is declining and Kodak just can't seam to get their act together in the digital area. They have been there since the beginning but they just can't compete with the Asian companies: Nikon, Canon, Pentax, SONY, Panasonic, etc...
Speaking of SONY and Panasonic, they were a bit late to the still camera game and they still are kicking Kodak's ass.
Re:Kodak Innovation. (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently a study by OKCupid confirms that Kodak's EasyShare cameras are complete shite [okcupid.com].
Anecdotally, my sister randomly bought one right before a trip (from Costco) a few years ago, and not only did her vacation pix suck, the damn thing broke in less than 2 months. The charger/connector looked like ass (a whole damn docking station) , and the whole thing just smacked of bad ideas mashed together without any market analysis or taste.
Perhaps it's because Kodak didn't want to jeapordize their film business or because the lenses were all made by the japanese companies anyway? If I had a choice of a decent dSLR from Kodak (back in 2003ish), I might have purchased one... I still have my original Canon Digital Rebel and it still takes awesome pictures with a fixed 50mm f1/8.