How RCA Lost the LCD (2012) | Hacker News Reader

How RCA Lost the LCD (2012)

spectrum.ieee.org

71 pointscenterorbit13 comments

So all RCA had to do was to solve the innovator's dillema and fight for the future something like 20-30 years in advance ?

exactly, like Kodak that invented the digital camera in 1975 [0] https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/08/12/kodaks-first-digit...

Not only did Kodak invent the digital camera, at the end of the 90ies, it was on the top of the digital camera market. Both Nikon and Canon cameras used to be available in a Kodak digital version. These were the first professional DSLRs. It took Nikon and Canon some time to come up with digital solutions of their own. Only in the mid 2000s, Kodak basically decided to exit the digital camera market, and the rest is history.

Nikon and Canon didn't have film empires to protect.

Also of note in this context is that Kodak invented LCD projectors and viewfinders.

In the end Kodak's film processing business was way larger than the entire modern digital camera industry. It employed hundreds of thousands of people in the USA alone.

There was no replacing that, ever, even if they transitioned to the digital age, it was over for kodak.

Sure, but even if the equipment and low-level employees were in film, they had the brand and engineering to be at the forefront. And if anyone could have known that digital would be the future, it was Kodak. is this institutional blindness and resistance to change a sort of sunk cost error on a massive scale?

It's the error of milking the (cash) cows.

Kodak spun out their chemical arm as Eastman in 1994. It was clear that there was going to be trouble ahead anyway, the main line of the business was polymers, and they were coming under increased pressure from Asia.

Also covered in Chapter 3 of We Were Burning: Japanese Entrepreneurs And The Forging Of The Electronic Age by Bob Johnstone http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2135359.We_Were_Burning .

Does anybody else have trouble opening the link? Firefox gives me a "Server not found" error.

edit: I also tried it in Edge, same result

8 preamble paragraph leading to a wider historycal perspective on capitalism, ain't nobody got time for that?

FYI this Spectrum article dates back to November 2012.

Thanks, we added 2012 above.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com