The New York Times published an interesting article on Kodak’s digital photography strategy yesterday. It talks about how Kodak rebounded from a 5-percent share of the U.S. market in 2000 to 19-percent today. That makes them number two behind Sony and just ahead of Canon.
There are a number of interesting points in this article, including that the
Kodak EasyShare Printer Dock that works with the with many of Kodak’s digital cameras is a popular accessory with some consumers. I have a tendency to forget that a lot of people aren’t as tuned into issues like photo printing consumables costs as Operation Gadget readers are.
Kodak executive Pierre Schaeffer reportedly pointed out, “The reason people buy a Canon is not fundamentally ease of use, and the reason they buy Sony is not ease of use.” Kodak’s product line focuses on ease of use, as it did in the Instamatic and Brownie eras when its slogan was “You push the button and we do the rest.” The Kodak model has never been about “cheap” necessarily, but it’s definitely been about “easy”. [ via Tomalak’s Realm ]