I wonder what Paul Simon has to say about this....
The news today that Nikon is phasing out its film-based cameras shouldn't come as news to anyone paying attention to technology trends or the habits of photographers.
This article from the NYT says that Nikon's film camera body business shrank from 16% of revenue to 3% in a single year. Even if you assume 25% revenue growth (total guess on my part), revenue dropped more than 75%, in a single year.
Wow!
Who would have thought back in 1973 that Kodachrome would still be around, but that no one really cared.
I don't follow the camera industry at all but my hunch is that Nikon, who catered to higher end photographers, was one of the last remaining manufacturers of film cameras. As predicted by Clayton Christensen, it's the most demanding user segment at the high end that's last to collapse from the introduction of disruptive technologies.
I'm not sure if the high end of the software industry has experienced this kind of collapse yet, but its coming for sure. It certainly has already occurred in the lower end. If there's any doubt, take a look at what happened at the smaller/low end players like Kana, Broadbase, Extensity, Vantive, Remedy, Scopus, Active, Crossworlds, E.piphany, ATG, etc., etc.
At the higher end, PeopleSoft and Siebel are simply two more points on the same trendline.
Will it ever stop? Not until the transformation is complete.
That's why I think the future of the Programmable Web is so bright. It's inevitable, and with a few lessons from history, we know how it will probably look.
There are a lot of smart people at Oracle and SAP that are trying to figure out what their future holds. I'm pretty sure they 'can read the writing on the wall'.
This article from the NYT says that Nikon's film camera body business shrank from 16% of revenue to 3% in a single year. Even if you assume 25% revenue growth (total guess on my part), revenue dropped more than 75%, in a single year.
Wow!
Who would have thought back in 1973 that Kodachrome would still be around, but that no one really cared.
I don't follow the camera industry at all but my hunch is that Nikon, who catered to higher end photographers, was one of the last remaining manufacturers of film cameras. As predicted by Clayton Christensen, it's the most demanding user segment at the high end that's last to collapse from the introduction of disruptive technologies.
I'm not sure if the high end of the software industry has experienced this kind of collapse yet, but its coming for sure. It certainly has already occurred in the lower end. If there's any doubt, take a look at what happened at the smaller/low end players like Kana, Broadbase, Extensity, Vantive, Remedy, Scopus, Active, Crossworlds, E.piphany, ATG, etc., etc.
At the higher end, PeopleSoft and Siebel are simply two more points on the same trendline.
Will it ever stop? Not until the transformation is complete.
That's why I think the future of the Programmable Web is so bright. It's inevitable, and with a few lessons from history, we know how it will probably look.
There are a lot of smart people at Oracle and SAP that are trying to figure out what their future holds. I'm pretty sure they 'can read the writing on the wall'.
4 Comments:
I find this news very depressing. I'm an ex-photography student- I bought a Nikon F75 SLR last year for the course. Now as it turns out, i'm online a lot and want to think about sharing my phots online, but is kinda dumb to gets prints then scan them.
Anyway, my main beef with this is that D-SLRs are still not remotely equal quality to film SLRs for the price. My F75 was £250 with a 28-100mm lens. (This is roughly equal to digital's "'3x optical zoom'). Now to get the equivalent digital version, you have to spend 3 or 4 times the price. And even then DSLRs are prone to stuff like image 'noise', they have start up times (my "start-up time" is 0.0 seconds).
And they suck batteries, and you're stuck with the CCD sensor you get with the camera- if you want a better quality image with film, you can just buy a high-quality film or slide film!
AND the model that you buy now will be £100 cheaper in a few months...
Grr!!! Digital bloody sucks! I hate retard consumers who buy stupid digi-shit they don't need and can't use properly (I bet you a large percentage of people who buy £400+ d-cameras just stick it on bloody auto the whole time).
You are right about the difference in image quality. I couldn't tell the difference, but my friend is a serious photographer says the same thing.
He's angry about the batteries, lenses, etc. as well.
I will say that the Nikon delay is about 1/4 the delay I have on my point/shoot Olympus, which has caused innumerable missed shots. I've thought about getting something better (than the Olympus) just to fix that...
You probably should.
P.S. Why didn't you allow my phone comment?
I did publish your cell phone comment, it's on the first entry....
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