Let's Have Fun on the Cloud

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW_kKafCIsg

Different applications of cloud computing will be discussed focus on emerging innovation practices in the following four industries: online dating, game, photography and conferencing. All of these four industries benefit from globalization, and strengthen the relationships among people through entertainment. Users in these industries can easily switch to each other and have synergy effect.

Online Dating

First of all, one of the most interesting business models of cloud computing, software as a service (SaaS), will be applied to illustrate online dating industry. Cloud providers create and manage the platform and infrastructure for online dating, where enable lonely people to develop relationships in the virtual world. Comparing to face-to-face communication, online dating allows people to talk to anyone at anytime in anywhere as long as you have a computer or a smartphone, social networking has never been easier. Along with the expansion of cloud, as well as the increasing demand of online social networking, online dating has become more and more popular. Generally speaking, online dating users usually have to pay for a subscription fee to access to the sites or Apps, which is one of the characteristic of SaaS. To support members’ activities, like uploading and posting photos and videos, as well as text/voice/video chatting, capacity of cloud is essential. If the cloud provider fails to provide stable and smooth service experiences, one may fail to advertise him/herself and lose his/her soul mate easily. Moreover, as SaaS has one drawback that the users' data are stored on the cloud provider's server which could be unauthorized accessed, appropriate management systems are crucial to protect users’ security and privacy.

 Source: http://certainlyher.com/the-online-dating-culture/

Gaming

Another interesting topic of cloud computing technology applied here is game industry. It operates by adopting videos or files storage and execution as the server for their on-demand “Gaming as a Service” (GaaS) solution in order to provide users extraordinary game service across various devices. There’s no doubt that gamers could experience tremendous advantages over traditional gaming systems under this new combination. For that many giant game companies could offer a bigger capacity of cloud storage for saving different categories of games and private user data in a more safe way, only charging game users a small amount of money or even for free！What we need to do is just to access them by different devices like mobile phone, personal computers, etc, without any time and space limitation simply. Initially, cloud computing would influence the gaming industry positively, stimulate the rapid development of gaming companies to dig out more better ways of user playing experience. In addition, the increasing globalization in recent years accelerate the gaming market growth under emerge of technological issue and game playing trend. On the other side, globalization also strengthens private tailored game production in meeting with the higher demand of customer preference and satisfaction when facing the opportunity of advanced technology sharing and the fierce game market competition across countries broader.

Source: http://www.techrj.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/cloud-gaming.jpg

 Source:http://www.thegeeksclub.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Download-Google-Play-Games-App-for-Android.png

 

 

Photography

Photography applications for cloud computing will definitely arouse the interests of photographer, shutterbug or those who just taking for fun. The various available cloud platforms have made it a reality of image storing, organizing, editing and sharing. Saving photos to the “Cloud” really refers to saving photos to an off-site storage system and accessing those photos over the Internet. Just as we get our electricity and water from remote sources and pipe them into our homes, the cloud pipes computing power into our homes via the Internet.

Cloud computing works as a nice and uncomplicated service that quietly collects all your photos and helps to share the best shots, which embraces public and private gallery options, and automatically upload from phone or tablet. When it comes to sharing, by utilizing elegant and intuitive controls, it’s easy to keep your public shots pubic and private shots private on both. Nevertheless, cloud storage and sharing also face with many problems technically or socially. For instance, access to files is sometimes restricted to a certain web page and restoring your pictures also have limitations at sizes or bandwidth. Under globalization, people from all over the world could share photographs anytime from anywhere, which is strengthening of the virtual interaction and communications, but also brings about emerging problem of copyright or hacker.

Source: http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/cloud-camera-3d-icons-28623962.jpg

 

Conferencing

Conferencing makes your life easier; it makes you feel like home anywhere you are. No matter if you or your family, friends are far away; you still feel like you are with them right in front. Conferencing as in Video or Audio helps in connecting multiple people at a time. All it does via cloud computing. A more convenient and efficient way of traveling, videoconferencing is becoming a preferred way to conduct both one-on-one and group meetings. It allows employees to participate in a more relaxed and comfortable setting, whether they working from on in office. Live video feeds allow participants to interact in real time. Within the enterprise, videoconferencing can also reduce time spent walking between campuses and buildings. Better yet, recent advances in videoconferencing technology make it more appealing and cost-effective than ever.

Enterprise desktop videoconferencing on cloud - in which each user attends the videoconference using his or her business desktop or laptop and a webcam - is a smarter alternative. Such as BYOD (bring your own device) and AWS (alternative work schedule) most firms start using, for cost optimization. For many users, the image and reputation of desktop videoconferencing has been skewed by their audio/video experiences with free Skype and similar products. While Skype performance has improved under Microsoft, especially with the new Xbox One system, which is not, in general opinion, an enterprise-grade product with management controls.
Reasons that video conferencing should move to Cloud:1) Reduce upfront costs; 2) Deliver Flexibility; 3) Provide simplicity; 4) Support a range of devices; 5) Ensure interoperability.

Conclusion

Through our analysis we have observed that cloud computing in entertainment industry has been a disruptive technology and an emergence technology at the same time. It has a huge scope, if not in short term but would definitely be in long run in terms of business profitability and mass target. This is specially because of the potential low cost strategy and the convenience for mass target users and also for the companies and sellers.

References:

1) http://www.informationweek.com/government/cloud-computing/better-videoconferencing-in-the-cloud/d/d-id/1113504

2) http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/tip/Five-reasons-to-move-video-conferencing-to-the-cloud

3) http://www.mosaicarchive.com/2011/10/24/cloud-storage-defined-for-photographers/

4) Matthew Bamberg (April 2012), Photography Applications for Cloud Computing, Retrieved from:http://www.safaribooksonline.com/library/view/photography-application-for/9781133788751

5) Lawrence K. Vanston (2008), Practical Tips for Forecasting New Technology Adoption, Retrieved from: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5h_a6oJZe2HWG9ZSVdaLU96cnc/view

6) Keeley Wilson and Yves L.Doz (2012),  10 Rules for Managing Global Innovation, Retrieved from: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5h_a6oJZe2HMU5JT3BhWUIxMGc/view

7) Recep Yucel and Osman DAGDELEN, Globalization of markets, marketing ethics and social responsibility, Retrieved from: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5h_a6oJZe2HNUlTdzQ1UlpaaEU/view

Cloud Computing – Book Industry > Name the company in your mind now – Amazon!

A Perfect Storm Comes- Cloud Computing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY2cNPj_KeY

While many of us have already heard about the phrase “Cloud Computing”, as well as the comments from IT experts that cloud computing presents a strategic opportunity for many different kinds of businesses as “an engine of growth”, not all have a clear picture of what actually cloud computing is . In October 2007, IBM and Google announced collaboration in cloud computing. Soon the term “cloud computing” become popular. (Chungye G et al, 2010) “The services of cloud computing are broadly divided into three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)” [L.M. Vaquero et al, 2009]. Cloud computing also is divided into five layers including clients, applications, platform, infrastructure and servers. Simply speaking, cloud computing relies on “sharing of resources to achieve coherence and economies of scale, similar to a utility (like the electricity grid) over a network”. [Peter M & Timothy G, 2011] 

Video: What’s cloud computing

Integrated Advantages of Cloud Computing

1.   Increased speed and flexibility 

“The cloud is cheaper, but that isn’t really what is driving companies into it,” said Greg DeMichillie, the director of Google’s cloud business for corporations. “They want to be more experimental, faster, data driven. This is part of a larger change inside companies.”The cloud is using virtualization and automation to provide users with self-service computing products that provide infinite scale at low cost.

2.   Automatically latest and greatest update

Cloud vendor renews and updates the software safely alongside with the business demand which enables companies a low cost and a large-scale resources of fulfilling their tasks.

3.   Adoption is quick and simple

“As mentioned earlier, users access cloud applications on standard web browsers anytime, anywhere. Using web style user interfaces, like that of eBay or Yahoo, allows for more widespread adoption across the company without the need for detailed training.” (Lindsey L, 2013)

Rapid Expansion of Cloud

Automation provides self-services, near infinite scale, utility-based pricing and service. Analysts believe the pace is picking up across the handful of big tech companies providing cloud services. “Two years ago, public clouds were maybe 2 percent of all computing workloads,” said Lydia Leong, a senior analyst at Gartner. “Now they are more than 10 percent. By 2018, it will be more than 50 percent.”

Cloud Computing-Radical Innovation for Book Industry 

Source: http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/25/technology/amazon-ebook-prices/

Now you probably got a general idea about cloud computing, but the surprising fact is, many of us use cloud computing service that providing technological advantages all day long without realizing it! For example, low price or even free e-books, featherweight libraries, etc. No matter at school or in the subway, you just need a hand-hold tablet or mobile device. Have you noticed that, the printed book you once fell in love with already shifted to digital one, and the sales in bookshop dropped silently…?  There is no doubt that, the traditional book industry is going through a big revolution emerged by the storm power of cloud computing technology…

Video: Changing face of publishing industry

Video: Publishing industry evolution

By running the customers’ software within their own data centers and listening closely to their needs, cloud companies learn more quickly about customer behavior, figuring out which incremental improvement they can immediately deploy across their networks. And then they can turn around and give those customers exactly what they want.Cloud computing is the result of evolution and adoption of existing technologies and paradigms.Cloud computing shares characteristics with agility which could improve with users’ ability to re-provision technological infrastructure resources, the performance of cloud is monitored and consistent and loosely coupled architectures are constructed using web services as the system interface.

Vedio: You would be Surprised how much the global e-Book Industry is Worth

Video: From Print to 2.0: the Rise of the New Publishing Industry

There are various advantages of cloud book compared to traditional books.

Space and weight savings: Multimedia benefits, Depending upon the software support and used formats, non-textual multimedia can also be embedded into e-book pages as widgets, including images(and image galleries), videos, audio files and interactive (still or animated) models; This results in the ability of e-book to offer richer reading experiences than is possible through traditional, physical books.

Environmental savings: Printed books use three times more raw materials and 78 times more water to produce when compared to e-books. However, the manufacture and distribution of e-book hardware(both the readers and the servers where e-books are downloaded) consume materials and energy; the disposal of e-readers create electronic waste, and the storage, distribution, and reading of e-books consumer energy. But this problem could be solved through cloud computing application into book industry.

Automatic back-up: Depending on possible digital rights management, e-books (unlike physical books) can be backed up and recovered in the case of loss or damage to the device on which they are stored, and it may be possible to recover a new copy without incurring an additional cost from the distributor, as well as to synchronize the text, highlights and bookmarks across several devices.

source: http://teacherytidbits.blogspot.hk/2012/10/webquest-freebie-and-winners.html

“Electronic books are ideal for people who value the information contained in them, or who have vision problems, or who like to read on the subway, or who do not want other people to see how they are amusing themselves, or who are useless for people who are engaged in an intense, lifelong love affair with books. Books that we can touch, books that we can smell, books that we can depend on.”

source: http://solmagazine.wordpress.com/2012/10/28/journey-to-the-cloud/

Is the publishing industry somehow being destroyed by a combination of Amazon price cutting and a wave of Netflix watching, iPhone gaming and tweeting? Definitely not, though you might come away with that ridiculously pessimistic view from some recent coverage trashing Amazon’s role in the industry. Actually, book sales have risen strongly since 2008, not coincidentally since e-books came on the scene. There’s more than ever to read-thus people are reading more than ever. In addition, innovations have changed the way that people interact with each other, except for the increasingly more readers, but also more writers with disruptive way of publishing.

Amazon:The Virtual Book Giant

Well, when the Internet is there so why the hassle of carrying loads of books in your bag packs or hands. Cloud computing takes it all. No matter where you are, all you need is Internet connection to read while the clouds are in your pocket. And Amazon is there to get you the clouds.

With the emergence of technological world, the radical transformation of physical books into data, which is incremental technology and are available anywhere anytime. Amazon works usually starts with a company occupying the lowest cost, lowest quality part of a market. That’s precisely what Amazon is doing now: Offering cloud services at rock-bottom prices. Startups love it, and everyone from location-based social network Foursquare to document sharing site Scribed uses Amazon’s web services (AWS).For pitfalls Amazon should observe how the companies like HMV failed badly in CD/DVD business for not entering into the right technology at the right time.

The book industry has long had an uneasy relationship with Amazon since Kindle’s launch which built Amazon’s e-book kingdom while triggered a revolution of physical books reading at the same time. Kindle is Amazon's portable reader that could wirelessly download books, blogs, magazines and newspapers to a high-resolution electronic paper display that looks like real paper. Since the first generation of Kindle released in November 2007 which sold out in five and a half hours and remained out of stock for five months, Amazon has launched more advanced versions of Kindle with cheaper price and more function. In addition, Amazon is also the world’s largest seller and producer of audio books, with close to 600 million listening hours downloaded in 2013. One of its spoken-word programming called Whispersync for Voice, which allows customers to switch seamlessly between reading a book on Kindle and listening to the corresponding audio book on smart phone, is called “Amazon’s new killer app for books” by The Wall Street Journal.

Vedio: Amazon Kindle Voyage

One of the advantages Amazon offers book buyers that bookstores don’t is the breadth of selection. Amazon has a wider selection of books than bookstores. The second advantage is Low Cost Strategy. The price to purchase a book online is often lower than the cost bookstores offer. Amazon doesn’t have to pay for store furniture, decorations, floorwalkers, fancy buildings, etc. With lower operating costs per book and greater volume, Amazon can keep prices down.

Strategic Fit Analysis of Amazon’s E-book Business

With the view that Amazon’s resources and capabilities match the eternal reading demand and growth potential of cloud computing, Amazon’s e-book business is considered a competitive advantage of the company.

Business Environment
The potential opportunities for Amazon, books on cloud computing is the low cost strategy with no hassle of physical carrying of books. Readers who want to have hands on more than one book at a time have started this technology. In cloud computing finding book in lesser time, can download the books anywhere.

Growing Sales of E-book and E-reader

Introduction of e-book and e-reader, which is fashion, convenient and environmental friendly, has changed people’s reading habits and forced print media and book seller to conform to the new consumer behavior. Based on the huge world-wide demand for literature, increasing demand of e-book and e-reader becomes a global trend. According to industry estimates, e-book share of total book sales has been and will keep growing, which secures a steady stream of income for the company.

Growing Demand for Cloud Computing Services
The demand for cloud computing services is expected to grow significantly in the medium to long term. As stated, proportion of public clouds over all computing workloads has been increased rapidly, and spending on public cloud computing services is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 23% during 2013-2017. Growing demand for cloud computing services is considered as an opportunity for Amazon.

Intense Competition in the E-reader Market
Competition in the e-reader market is extremely keen as not only the e-reader devices from industry players such as Barnes & Noble and Sony competing for a share in this growing market, but also the tablet including the Apple iPad and Android tablet acts as a substitute for e-reader device. Under such circumstance, price war is inevitable, which depress the price of Amazon’s Kindle series.

Core Competence

Leading Position in the E-book Market
Amazon has established and maintained its leading position in the e-book market. As of February 2015, there are over 3.2 million e-books available in the Kindle Store. Disregard the dropping selling price, sales of Kindle, as well as the e-books, has always been solid and satisfying, which contributes to Amazon’s earning growth. In addition to its strong research and development ability currently, Amazon’s strong financial performance enables the company to extend product lines and strengthen technical platform through strategic acquisitions. Plus the brand’s reputation, Amazon’s leading position is expected to continue.

Solid Background Operation Support
In addition to Amazon’s abundant financial resource, its technology resource is also considered as a competitive advantage of the company. AWS provides a highly reliable, scalable, low-cost infrastructure platform in the cloud that powers hundreds of thousands of businesses in 190 countries around the world. Backup by the solid background operation support from AWS, Amazon’s e-book business could benefit from the increasing demand for cloud computing services with less risks and more profitability, comparing to the case that depends on a third party cloud computing provider.

Business Elite
Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, is one of the most important reasons that lead to Amazon’s success. Bezos is a technology entrepreneur who has played a key role in the growth of e-commerce. With solid education background in electrical engineering and computer science, Bezos is sensitive to the business opportunities in information technology industry, proved by the step-ahead move before the boost of internet and cloud computing technology. Bezos once stated in an interview that, companies which innovate within their existing competencies are doomed to fail; innovation means building new competencies. Bezons acts just as what he said, which enables him to find good timing of new product entries, make quick and correct judgments and decisions, to lead Amazon to success.

Porter’s Five Forces Model Analysis for Amazon in E-books Business

1) Degree of existing rivalry: There are few existing competitors with the giant company like Amazon who has huge significant presence in the internet online industry. Amazon has competitive edge in IT sector of cloud computing for the e-books.

2) Threat of potential entrants: There is less chance of potential entrants with Amazon as the setup in IT business what Amazon has it is difficult to build similar huge IT setup.

3) Bargaining power of suppliers: Amazon has an advantage of large selection of books than bookstores.

4) Bargaining power of buyers: Amazon has advantage of having huge chain of customers due to its expanded business.

5) Threat of substitute: There is less chance of substitutes for Amazon due to its expanded business and high presence in market for a long time with huge quantity of customers.

Another potential opportunity for Amazon in e-books business, there is high flexibility and multiple players in market. It’s an emerging business for both buyers and sellers. The following video helps in determining Amazon’s flexibility and the multiple players who get associated with e-books business.

Vedio: How to self-publish your ebook on Amazon Kindle in 4 minutes

Recommendations

I.      We believe this is the right time for Amazon to expand in the field of cloud computing for e-books. As readers are looking for cost effective and convenient reading. And the trend of smartphones and tablets has been increasing and people like carrying tablets and smartphones instead of books so to perform multiple tasking. Like in one device they can do reading, browsing, communication, gaming, photography etc.

II.     Amazon should make deal with major big bookstores and should start doing either mergers or acquisitions with the bookseller companies. This is how they will expand the online book reading business. As Amazon has good technology setup both online and cloud computing and it will help the booksellers in setting and entering in online business.

III.   Amazon should make a flexible, smooth and efficient search engine to search the books. This would save a lot of time of the readers to search books and maintain their interest in reading.

References

1. Marketline. Amazon.com, Inc. SWOT Analysis. (2014). Amazon.com, Inc. SWOT Analysis, 1-11.
2. Amazon.com, Inc. Retrieved from:http://www.amazon.com/
3. Amazon Web Services. Retrieved from:http://aws.amazon.com/
4. Strategos. Creativity-Does It Die From Structure? Carl Hamilton, 2014. Retrieved from:http://www.strategos.com/creativity-die-structure/
5. John Sviokla. (12 May 2008). Harvard Business Review. Innovation Lessons from Amazon. Retrieved from:https://hbr.org/2008/05/innovation-lessons-from-amazon
6. Bernd Leger. (28 January 2013). Localytics. Kindle Fire Drives Us Android Tablet Dominance. Retrived from:http://info.localytics.com/blog/kindle-fire-drives-us-android-tablet-dominance
7. Statista. (2015). The Statistics Portal. E-book share of total consumer book sales in the United States from 2009 to 2015. Retrieved from:http://www.statista.com/statistics/190847/ebook-share-of-total-consumer-book-sales-in-the-us-till-2015/
8. Statista. (2015). The Statistics Portal. E-book sales as a percentage of total book sales worldwide in 2013 and 2018. Retrieved from:http://www.statista.com/statistics/234106/e-book-market-share-worldwide/

9. HBR Classic.(1998). Peter F.Drucker, The Discipline of Innovation: Innvation can be systematically managed if one knows where and how to look. Retrieved from: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5h_a6oJZe2HMDhXay14S0tpc/XM/view?usp=sharing

10. Chunye Gong, Jie Liu, Qiang Zhang, Haitao Chen and Zhenghu Gong, The Characteristics of Cloud Computing, International Conference on Parallel Processing Workshops, p276. 2010
11. L.M. Vaquero, L.R. Merino, J. Caceres, and M. Lindner, “A break in the clouds: towards a cloud definition,” ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, v.39 n.1, 2009.
12. Advanced Institute of Management Research, At the Edge of  Innovation: Why shifts in the boundaries of innovation matters.

Retrieved from:https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5h_a6oJZe2HRExBakJKa2M1Mzg/view
13. Peter Mell&Timothy Grance,2011, The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing". National Institute of Standards and Technology. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing#cite_note-nist-2
14. Lindsey LaManna, 2013. 6 Benefits of Cloud Computing-If You Haven’t Considered It, You’re Way Behind.

15. Transforation Through Strategy and Innovation, Michel van Hove, 2014. Retrieved from: http://www.strategos.com/transformation-strategy-innovation/

Kodak’s Advantix Preview, one step ahead but step back

1.     Background

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBnl0CYUD8E

Eastman Kodak Company ("Kodak" or "the Company"), once a leading global giant focused on imaging for over a century, has become a falling star in the current decades. The management’s inability to seize the opportunity in digital photography and inaccurate strategic decision has become a classic example of inexcusable business failure.

While Kodak was the industry pioneer to introduce the first digital camera in the world, digital technology was used as a prop to support Kodak’s film business, misjudged or disregard the fact that digital photography would replace film in the very near future.

In 1996, Kodak introduced Advantix Preview film and camera system, which Kodak spent more than $500M to develop and launch. Display function was added to the digital camera to enable users to preview their shots, yet it still used film and emphasized print. Such innovation was not thorough and there was a fatal logical problem, why should customers buy a digital camera and still pay for film and prints?

It turned out that Advantix Preview was an undisputable technological innovation failure which led to Kodak’s decades-long decline. In addition to the entire cost in research and development, Kodak’s lost timing and failure to transform from film to digital later resulted in billions in losses. By losing this battle, Kodak also lost its monopoly position in the photography industry.

Focused on Kodak’s Advantix Preview, we are going to conduct analysis on the key factors which leads to the failure, and try to give recommendations on what should have been done.

2.     Industry Analysis

Market: From Expansion to Shrink

(Source: CIPA)
Though not perfectly accurate, global cameras demand trend could still be perceived based on the global shipment data provided by the Japanese major players. Total demand for cameras shows overall steady annual growths until the digital cameras launched in the late 1990s, where double digit increase had been recorded almost every year. However, began with a fluctuation in 2009, consumptions declined significantly and the year-on-year decreases in the past two years even over 30%, which made the consumptions of cameras back to the same level in the early 2000s.

Industry: From Traditional Film to Digital Photography

Meanwhile, as indicated in the above charts, there was a sharp decline in demand of traditional film camera and printing industry that Kodak used to dominate, while digital photography was growing rapidly during the past few decades.

Along with the last Kodak film roll sold to a famous photographer Steve McCurry in 2010, traditional film era finally came to an end due to the digital photography revolution.

While Kodak film had been the unique industry leader for more than a century, advent of digital cameras easily killed the whole traditional film industry with no exception. Threat of substitutes in the imaging industry can be said extremely high as it is not only a simple upgrade with lower cost and better performance, but also a replacement with a brand new system and concept which is fatal and less possible to turnaround.

Technological revolution is an eternal theme. Nowadays, widespread usage of smartphone cameras is again pushing digital camera sales into an unavoidable fall.

Rivalry: From Monopolistic Competition to Perfect Competition

Dated back to 1970s when Kodak was the unique industry leader, the Company held about 90% of the market share of photographic film sales and had total control over the market price. But Kodak's previously stable and solid film business was then threatened by the intense competition from the start-ups from Japan like Fuji Film, which resulted in pressures on pricing and profitability very soon.

Especially when the market changed to digital, competitive rivalry became extremely high because of the lower entry barriers. In addition to the Japanese camera manufacturers, the industry was also flooded by entrants with electronic background. In 2010, Kodak’s market share in digital cameras further declined to 7.4%, far less than the current major players like Canon (19.0%), Sony (17.9%), Nikon (12.6%) and Samsung (11.1%).

Consumers: From Led to Lead

There is no wonder why consumers had made a rapid migration to digital, as it enables people to have much more choices comparing to the traditional film era at the very beginning. Buyer’s bargaining power has been increasing, as there are minimal switching costs because of the keen competition in the market.

What’s more, because of the strengthening green consumption concept, consumers tend to prefer to save the photos in soft copy as films and prints are not biodegradable and cost effective. In addition, growing popularity of social networking and the trend of sharing images over various platforms have led to the growth of the digital photography industry. Therefore, it has become the manufactures’ mission and duty to produce convenience, compact and user-friendly products to fulfill consumers’ needs and expectations.

(More than you ever wanted to know about APS/Advantix film cameras)

Industry analysis conclusion of Kodak Advantix
As the one whom took the lead in the imaging industry previously, Kodak had been experiencing an embarrassing situation by its failure to take appropriate pre-emptive action to transform to digital photography.

Introduction and development of digital technology innovation had brought great changes to the imaging market. It was not that Kodak did not have sufficient market analysis on this, but that the management had made wrong decisions and planning for the Company’s product strategy. Later facts also proved that research and development on Advantix Preview was totally a disaster which was a waste of time and resource and at last made Kodak a late mover to the real digital market.

3. Unconsciously Intended to be later adopter
Kodak was able to lead the digital camera industry once it had taken the decisive  initiative to further dig into the creation of "Rising Star" and audaciously made transformation of the "Cash Cows".


Steve Sasson, the Kodak engineer who invented the first digital camera in 1975, characterized the initial corporate response to his invention this way:
"But it was filmless photography, so management's reaction was, 'that's cute--but don't tell anyone about it'."

(Kodak Says “It’s Not Playing Grab Ass Anymore” with digital - in 2007)

It was in 1981, around the time that Sony introduced the first electronic camera, one of Kodak’s largest retailer photo finishers asked him whether they should be concerned about digital photography. Thus, Kodak conducted a study to look at the core technologies and likely adoption curves around silver halide film versus digital photography. The result indicted that digital photography had the potential capability to replace Kodak’s established film based business, but it would take some time for that to occur and that Kodak had roughly ten years to prepare for the transition.

(Kodak Advantix Preview Camera COMPLETE TEARDOWN)

The problem is that, during its 10-year window of opportunity, Kodak did little to prepare for the later disruption.

In 1986, Kodak’s research labs developed the first mega-pixel camera, one of the milestones that Barabba’s study had forecasted as a tipping point in terms of the viability of standalone digital photography. The choice to use digital as a prop for the film business culminated in the 1996 introduction of the Advantix Preview film and camera system, which Kodak spent more than $500M to develop and launch. One of the key features of the Advantix system was that it allowed users to preview their shots and indicate how many prints they wanted. The Advantix Preview could do that because it was a digital camera. Yet it still used film and emphasized print because Kodak was in the photo film, chemical and paper business. Advantix flopped. Why buy a digital camera and still pay for film and prints? Kodak wrote off almost the entire cost of development.

(Kodak Advantix ad (1998) )

In 1989, the Kodak board of directors had a chance to make a course change when Colby Chandler, the CEO, retired. The choices came down to Phil Samper and Kay R. Whitmore. Whitmore represented the traditional film business, where he had moved up the rank for three decades. Samper had a deep appreciation for digital technology. The board chose Whitmore. As the New York Times reported at the time, Mr. Whitmore said he would make sure Kodak stayed closer to its core businesses in film and photographic chemicals.

(Disruptive innovation: The Story of the First Digital Camera)

For more than another decade, a series of new Kodak CEOs would bemoan his predecessor’s failure to transform the organization to digital, declare his own intention to do so, and proceed to fail at the transition, as well. George Fisher, who was lured from his position as CEO of Motorola to succeed Whitmore in 1993, captured the core issue when he told the New York Times that Kodak regarded digital photography as the enemy, an evil juggernaut that would kill the chemical-based film and paper business that fueled Kodak’s sales and profits for decades.

Fisher oversaw the flop of Advantix and was gone by 1999. As the 2007 Kodak video acknowledges, the story did not change for another decade.

Kodak management not only presided over the creation technological breakthroughs but was also presented with an accurate market assessment about the risks and opportunities of such capabilities. Yet Kodak failed in making the right strategic choices.

Digital Camera Global Market Share in Year 2010

Camera Development Timeline:

1727	The discovery that silver nitrate changes Johann Heinrich Schulz discovered that a substance called  silver nitrate would change color when exposed to light. This  paved the way for the first pictures to be taken processed.
1814	The camera obscura is developed Joseph Niepce developed the camera obscura and took the  first photo with it. It wasn’t ideal, though, because it took 8 hours  of light exposure to make a picture, and the picture faded with time.
1837	The Daguerreotype was invented Louis Daguerre invented a new way to take pictures. It only  needed 30 minutes of light exposure, and the image didn’t fade  with time.
1841	Making multiple copies possible William Henry Talbot developed the Calotype process.  This made it possible to make multiple copies of the same picture.
1851	Taking pictures gets easier With the new Collodion process, cameras only needed a few  seconds of light exposure to make a picture.
1871	Film is made easier to handle Up until this time pictures had to be developed immediately  after being taken. Richard Leach Maddox invented the gelatin dry plate silver bromide process, which made it possible to take a  picture and develop it later.
1888	The invention of the roll-film camera George Eastman invented the first roll-film camera.
1948	The Polaroid camera is marketed The Polaroid allowed people to take a photo and have it  developed immediately, right from the camera.
1963	Colored film is introduced Polaroid came out with the first colored film.
1980	The first consumer camcorder is released Sony put out the first consumer camcorder, allowing  people to record their memories in real time.
1975	The first digital camera is developed Steve Sasson built the first digital camera.
1984	The first digital camera is marked Canon put out the first digital camera for the public,  which was later improved by Pixar
1990	The first camera phones(1990’s) The camera phone technology was first used in Japan,  but it quickly spread around the world
2001	The Easy Share camera comes into play Kodak put out their Easy Share digital camera, which made it easy to snap pictures and download them to  the computer
2012	Wireless cameras are developed Kodak put out cameras that didn’t have to be connected  to a computer in order to download and share the pictures

4. What Influenced Kodak's choice on Advantix Preview?

Here we use industry the Five Forces model of Porter that we learned to analyze what influenced Kodak’s choice about Advantix Preview.

Firstly, we think that rivalry among competitive providers is extremely intense. The intense rivalry among providers comes from many different competitors such us Canon, Sony, Nikon in various photography segments. As we know that the photography equipment industry suffered a big change at the beginning of the 21st century. According to Khanh. G's research," the market revenue for film sales, film processing, and traditional film cameras was declined continuously from $2.97, $6.93 and $1.65 billion in 2000 to $2.86, $6.68, and $1.21 billion in 2002." (Khanh G, 2009) However, many people would never forget that Kodak was once the filming selling giant so as the Kodak’s top management team. They still cannot let go of the gloria history of being the biggest profit earner in the camera films market. And admittedly, this kind of phenomenon also exists in many other industries. Under the intense rivalry, Kodak tried to find a way that could maintain their success of film selling, hoping that their target customer would not switch to buy the product from their competitors. In the meantime, to put more interest in creating another “profit earner” of technological innovation， which could capture the customers’ eyes and helps rescuing the company’s profit margin decline.

Secondly, the threat from the traditional film camera’s substitutes is pretty strong even the potential new entrant- digital camera was not introduced to the main market. Kodak actually was the first entered into digital technologies entry door, but the top management obviously did not catch this perfectly important transitional time. Instead, they chose to hide this great invention, telling their chief engineer that keeping his mouth shut. It’s not hard to figure that this kind of action comes from the fear of film camera’s substitutes. Top management knew that their film selling would undoubtedly face the risk of breaking down once another new technology came out. Advantix Preview turned out to be the deliration which was born under the risk and fear that provided new digital photo playback function without abandoning the film usage.

Thirdly, the bargaining power of suppliers was relatively weak after 21^st century, since they gradually moved their manufacturers from US or other western countries to eastern countries for film production. Because of the low labor, raw material and facilities cost of making films and other camera components, Kodak and other famous brand film camera providers suffered the pressure of reducing the products’ selling price successively, which urged Kodak’s top management to come up with some other solutions to save the whole market and slow down the changing the trend. Therefore, Advantix Preview was expected to be the savior of Kodak in 1996 consequently.

5)  The actual technology global forecast for Kodak Advantix (APS – Advanced photo system):

Kodak advantix is one of the Kodak’s brand for advanced photo system which consists of new high-tech cameras and film processing. It was developed by consortium of five world leading camera companies. At the time of its launch Kodak faced difficulty to meet the high dealer demand for the new cameras and films. A wide range of Kodak Advantix products as follows:

 Camera Name                                  From              To           Film Size            Price (US$)

KODAK ADVANTIX C300 Auto Camera	1998		240	59.00
KODAK ADVANTIX C400 Auto Focus Camera	1998		240	159.00
KODAK ADVANTIX C650 Zoom Camera	1998		240	69.00
KODAK ADVANTIX C700 Zoom Camera	1998		240	189.00
KODAK ADVANTIX F300 Auto Camera	1998		240	49.00
KODAK ADVANTIX F600 Zoom Camera	1999		240	129.00
KODAK ADVANTIX T500 Auto Focus Camera	1998		240	139.00
KODAK ADVANTIX T550 Auto Focus Camera	1998		240	149.00
KODAK ADVANTIX 1600 Auto Camera	1997		240	79.95
KODAK ADVANTIX 2000 Auto Camera	1996		240	99.95
KODAK ADVANTIX 2100 Auto Camera	1996		240	99.95
KODAK ADVANTIX 3200AF Camera	1996		240	119.95
KODAK ADVANTIX 3600ix Camera	1996		240	189.95
KODAK ADVANTIX 3700ix Camera	1996		240	194.95
KODAK ADVANTIX 4100ix Zoom Camera	1996		240	229.95
KODAK ADVANTIX 4700ix Zoom Camera	1997		240	309.95
KODAK ADVANTIX 5600MRX Text-Date Camera	1996	1997	240	577.20
KODAK ADVANTIX 5800MRX Zoom Camera	1996	1998	240	429.00
KODAK FUN SAVER ADVANTIX One-Time-Use Flash Camera	1996		240	19.95

Kodak Advantix Technology forecast inaccuracy:

One of the primary reasons of Kodak advantix failure was the unpredictability of the camera technology launch time. Although at the time of it’s launch all the industry experts had an agreed opinion that digital cameras are the future. But the time when it was launched, the consumer’s requirement and need were not there. As most of the masses were using the existing technology and products and not prepared to use this new innovation product of advanced photo system which was launched on huge scale.

The Advantix with new advanced cameras and films was founded in 1996 rollout. Kodak has spent around US$ 100 million in its re-launch in addition of US$ 500 million in its initial launch and it was forecasted that the launch expenses would go even higher. The Kodak’s management was optimistic about the Advantix products that it will be huge success in long term. For the re-launch the management had to rebuild Kodak’s corporate culture. Once possessed nearly a monopoly in film business, Kodak faced an array of hungry new rivals called Silicon Valley powerhouse Hewlett-Packard Co., which sees photography as a new market for its printing technology.

Kodak had gone through huge layoffs in early 1990’s. Layering of thousands of its employees has already shaken the 95,000 workforces in 1997. The company management had brought few outsiders to mix with Kodak lifers in his inner circle of executives.

Key Company and Industry learning Factors of Kodak Advantix failure:

Factors that have been identified for Kodak Advantix failure are listed as follows:

• The Kodak Advantix product launch time was not right, it was launched at the time when it was not needed or required by the consumers. The technology was so advanced that it was not needed at the time of its launch as the consumers were unaware and highly unexpected of such advanced technology. 
• After the first failure, the management was still optimistic in its long-term success and kept spending money. Kodak Advantix had to be re-launched. For re-launching, the management had to rebuild the corporate culture.
• During the time of failure and re-launching, it broke the Kodak’s near monopoly and gave chance to the competitors to create the interest in printing technology and faced strong competition from Hewlett-Packard.
• Since the product failure and re-launching caused a fear in the current workforce for layering. This would ultimately effect the employee’s motivation and morale and eventually affect the performance.

Recommendations of hindsight of failure factors of Kodak Advantix:

Upon analysis at the failure factors of Kodak Advantix, the recommendations would be as follows:

• Although Kodak’s management was optimistic about the long-term success of the Advantix products. The management should have identified the consumer’s need of the product and launch the product at the right time. As they had launched the product technology way earlier when it was not needed and caused failure. The product technology was way higher than consumer’s expectation and consumers awareness was not there at the time of launch. The product should be launch at the time when the consumers were fully prepared and had awareness of using the technology.

• After the product launched and Kodak faced a great deal of loss which result the failure of Advantix. The management somehow failed to realize the root cause of the failure and kept their optimism level high. And they kept spending the money and re-launch the product. The re-launching was an ultimate failure too. This has resulted the loss of efforts, time and money. Therefore before launching the technology the management should have come up with stiff strategic planning and market test for the product need.

• Management should identify that once the product has been failed and technology is in the market. They should be more cautious of the competitors. Therefore the Kodak’s management would have come with even strong strategy how to cater the upcoming competition. The Porter’s five forces model would be useful to cater this point.

• Kodak’s management should have taken the employees roles into consideration, at the time when they failed for Advantix. They should use the motivational strategies for their employees not to loose their moral and kept with high performance.

• Kodak management’s inability to see digital photography as a disruptive technology, even as its researchers extended the boundaries of the technology, would continue for decades. As late as 2007, a Kodak marketing video felt the need to trumpet that “Kodak is back “ and that Kodak “wasn’t going to play grab ass anymore” with digital.

References:

1.Khanh Pham Gia. (2009). Case study: Kodak at a crossroads - The transition from film-based to digital photography： 219–234.
2.Vincent Barabba. (2011). The Decision Loom: A Design for Interactive Decision-Making in Organizations: 96-123.
3.Paul B. Carroll, Chunka Mui. (2009). Billion Dollar Lessons: What you can learn from the Most Inexcusable Business Failures of the Last 25 Years: 157-183.
4. The Daily Dow article Tuesday April 16, 1996
5. The Wall Street Journal Article July 25, 1997
6. www.kodak.com

1.    Shamiyeh, M. (2014). Discontinuous Change and Organizational Response: Exploring the Moderating Effects of Resources and Capabilities – the Case of Kodak. University Of St. Gallen, Business Dissertations, 1-359. Retrieved from: http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.cityu.edu.hk/bsi/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=1589258d-81fc-4bcf-a658-91f5c53a36ee%40sessionmgr4001&vid=5&hid=4201

2.    Vitton, J. J., Schultz, P. L., & Butz, N. T. (2014). EASTMAN KODAK: FACING DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE. Journal Of Critical Incidents, 783-86. Retrieved from: http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.cityu.edu.hk/bsi/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=ec75b9f3-7d28-477f-bcfd-8d5dccaef4d4%40sessionmgr4004&vid=4&hid=4201

3.    Eastman Kodak Company SWOT Analysis. (2015). Eastman Kodak Company SWOT Analysis, 1-9. Retrieved from: http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.cityu.edu.hk/bsi/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=ec75b9f3-7d28-477f-bcfd-8d5dccaef4d4%40sessionmgr4004&vid=7&hid=4201

4.    Eastman Kodak Company. (2005). User-driven Competitive Intelligence: Crafting the Value Proposition - Kodak Case Study, 97-110. Retrieved from: http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.cityu.edu.hk/bsi/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=ec75b9f3-7d28-477f-bcfd-8d5dccaef4d4%40sessionmgr4004&vid=10&hid=4201

5.  Mohanbir Sawhney, Robert C. Wolcott & Inigo Arroniz. (2006). The 12 Different Ways for Companies to Innovate. MIT Sloan Management Review. Retrieved from required readings:

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5h_a6oJZe2HazVZTDNkRDJHcnM/view?usp=sharing

6.    Mui. C. (2012, January 18). How Kodak Failed. Retrieved 6 March, 2015, from Forbes website: http://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2012/01/18/how-kodak-failed/

7.    Cohan. P. (2011, January 10). How Success Killed Eastman Kodak. Retrieved 6 March, 2015, from Forbes website: http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2011/10/01/how-success-killed-eastman-kodak/

8.  Stefan Thomke & Donald Reinertsen. (May,2012). Six myths of Product Development.

     Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from required readings: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5h_a6oJZe2HZVBmUGp4QI9kaUU/view?usp=sharing

9.    Camera & Imaging Products Association. Total Shipments of Cameras and Interchangeable Lenses. (2015). Retrieved from: http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/common/cr200.pdf

10.    Global Ranking of Cameras Manufacturers. (2011, April 16). Retrieved 5 March, 2015, from New Camera website: http://thenewcamera.com/global-ranking-of-cameras-manufacturers/

11.   Harjani. A. (2014, November 5). Oh snap! Digital camera market in ‘free fall’. Retrieved 6 March, 2015, from CNBC website: http://www.cnbc.com/id/102153000#.

12. You Press the Button. Kodak Used to Do the Rest. (2011, December 9). Retrieved 7 March, 2015, from MIT Technology Review website: https://www.technologyreview.es/printer_friendly article.aspx?id=39219

13. Usborne. D. (2012, January 20). The moment it all went wrong for Kodak. Retrieved 8 March, 2015, from The Independent website: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/the-moment-it-all-went-wrong-for-kodak-6292212.html

14. Keeley Wilson & Yvves L. Doz. (October,2012). 10 Rules for Managing Global Innovation. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from required readings: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5h_a6oJZe2HMU5JT3BhWUIxMGc/view?usp=sharing

15. Kodak's Bet on Digital Photos Has Been an Economic Loser:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB86http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB8697810427862280009781042786228000

16. History of KODAK Cameras
http://www.kodak.com/global/en/consumer/products/techInfo/aa13/aa13.shtml