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The Tragedy of Kodak

By Mohamed Zayed, iNews Cayman special correspondent

The legacy of 130 years ended up with bankruptcy. It is disappointing that Kodak, the main memories store, faded away forever. Kodak had been used to photograph important moments in every household, in developed or developing countries for about a century.

At first, wet plates were used to photograph, and took 15 minutes to take a photo.  In 1881, George Eastman started to pave the way for snap photographing with great resolution. ‘You press the button – we do the best’ is the slogan of the company ‘s new camera. In the 1930s, he launched his own camera Kodak.  The Company kept developing and updating its photographing systems.

In 1969 Appolo 11 used a Kodak film during its missions. In 1975, the company tasked an engineer called Steven Sasson with creating the first digital camera. This camera was capable of storing its images on a cassette tape; it also could expose each image within 23 seconds. But, the company chose not to get its new invention into the market, fearing at the time that it would affect its great profits from traditional roll films. Since then Kodak had begun to slide into stagnation while Japan and China developed their digital technology and put Kodak at the tail. It couldn’t hold up for long, it lost sharply its value in the photographing industry as it had about $ 6 billion debts and that lead to bankruptcy in early 2012.

Keeping doing research and inventing new technology is essential to survival of any body, economic – political or social.

When we take Ford as an example, it was established by Henry Ford in 1900 ‘s. The cogwheel of its invention has been kept rolling for more than a century. It manufactures everything relevant to vehicles –cars, trucks, race cars and electric vehicles. It has built factories across the six continents.

Another instance is Virgin founded by British Richard Branson. He owns over 250 companies across the world. He employs the staff as inventers and he gives them space to think and present their ideas. Its companies cover many sectors. So all of us should learn the lessons.

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