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an article by George M Engel from The FoxWood Lake Estates Computer Users Group Newsletter
I remember back when OS X first came out and I was deeply entrenched in OS 9.2.1, the old standby that was Apple's last solid OS. Boy, did I have it tweaked 'just right!' What a System that was. And then 'Wham,' the latest and greatest OS X hit the shelves.
Being an old veteran of the Macin tosh Service Bench, I was hesitant to be an 'Apple Pioneer.' We've all read about what happened to the Pioneers in the Old West. They were the ones who got stuck with the Arrows. The Homesteaders came out after the problems were solved and were the ones who lived 'happily ever after.' So I waited patiently and finally evolved into OS X when I could afford to upgrade all my costly software. Anybody looking for over 1,000 OS 9 original programs?
As always, there are people, like the Neanderthals and the Luddites, who are resistant to change just for changes sake. At least my change was based on reason, that being safety, cost and reliability. As time proved out, I was correct in all my assumptions.
But what about those 'Luddites' in the Corporate world, who direct the futures and livelihood of many thousands of their employees? I've seen many companies go down the tubes; some of them in the best interests of their loyal consumer base, sorry to say. They held on until it was too late to change and couldn't make the conversion.
Others, because they were too stupid! Let's talk about the 'too stupid.' Microsoft's Bill Gates took over Visicalc and renamed it 'excel' because the author of Visicalc never copyrighted it! True. Apple could have bought it for $1,000,000 and would have owned it. Apple turned it down! H-P turned down the purchase of Apple in the early days. The old Commodore Computer Giant reputedly refused to buy Apple for $100,000 in the beginning days. IBM turned down an offer to buy a copying machine startup company. That company went on to become XEROX!
I look back on all those great software companies of the '80s and '90s and think to myself, 'what if?' If they only.... they'd be around today.
I was reading the paper today and saw an article on two companies we've all heard of, one of which the younger generation may not be familiar with.
Those companies are Kodak and Polaroid. Two generation Giants that fumbled and are trying for a come-back. Will they make it? Probably not, but game's not over yet.
First let's look at Kodak, like the prehistoric T-Rex who ruled their world and had no known enemies. They ruled it. Kodak ruled the film industry. They practically owned it, setting prices and had a huge industry, spreading out from Rochester, NY around the world, like tentacles of an octopus. When Polaroid made the first digital camera, Kodak yawned and figured it was a nice expensive toy, but absolutely no threat and continued on it's way. Polaroid never really went farther than that, never spending gobs on R&D to develop the ideas they started. Kodak still yawned while Japan and Germany took the early ideas of Polaroid and started working on them.
Eventually, as evolution happened, the digital camera industry was formulated and the early pioneer prices started dropping and became more affordable. Kodak still yawned and figured that their film was impregnable. They were wrong, as it turned out. Their employee base dropped from 145,399 employees in 1988 to just under 30,000 by the end of this year. They had great R&D, but the Luddites at the helm of the ship, didn't see the rocky shoals ahead that could have prevented disaster. Now they're throwing money into their Digital Cameras and dropping prices like crazy to turn it around. They've also had 9 out of 10 bad financial quarters and are laying off about another 10 percent of it's work force.
Polaroid also thought film was the end-all technology and refused to change to digital. Now, guess what? They're coming out with something it calls new? Why, it's a 40 GB USB External Hard Drive that hooks up to your computer and stores all your pictures. AND, it only costs about $120. What? And it's Windows-only?
As I said, it's like the Neanderthals are throwing their last spear at Uzi-using Homo Sapiens! Didn't Polaroid do any research on this? People can buy devices with backup software and do it themselves far cheaper than that. I bet that Polaroid is betting that people are too stupid to understand how computers work and want the 'I'll do it for you at whatever the cost' hardware they're trying to sell. It's a hell of a gamble!
I'll bet on the people versus Polaroid. Only time will tell!
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