Photoclubalpha

I was quite surprised during my visit to Worcester city-centre on Saturday morning to see the shutters on the Sony Centre were down with a sign up saying 'Closed'. I knew that Sony had a bad year in 2011, and in general things are not good on the high street, but this was still a surprise. It was a part of a Sony Centre franchise that has closed down with a group of 4 or 5 stores in the Midlands and South-West.

Despite it being my favourite electronics store in town I was always a bit disappointed after a visit. I always felt I was more in to what they were selling than they were. I am lucky to still have a LCE and Jessops in town for photography stuff. It will be a bad time for the staff from all of those shops - I hope they're back in to work soon.

One of the reasons I closed Photoworld magazine was the failed hope that Sony Centres, and Sony ACE dealers, might have been decent evangelists for the club. I sent bundles of magazines, I sent membership forms; I offered commissions, I put all of them on the permanent mailing list. Not one dealer was ever able to do a thing apart from LCE Colchester, who did bring in a dozen or two new members. Then, in the last three years, the dealer magazines began to be returned 'gone away' at a rate of two or three a month.

David

David you would have too admit that Sony’s idea of promotion is peculiar to say the least. One would think that most ‘normal’ manufacturers would welcome a club like Photo Club Alpha as a great promotional tool, the enthusiasm was already there for the brand and they didn’t have to hardly lift a finger to help, but instead went out of their way to be obstructive. It’s almost like Sony is in self destruct mode most of the time, natural disasters or no natural disasters.
Greg

My ‘opinion’ of Kodak is that they misread the upsurgeance and potential of digital imaging, I think they were hoping that it was a ‘fad’ that would co-exist with film and would never have the ability of challenging film in any great capacity. In some ways it’s a great pity they were wrong with that assessment, the thing that amazes me is Kodak more or less got the whole digital imaging direction kick-started in the first place and then sat on their thumbs…basically.
Maybe they were just trying to keep a lid on it too protect their huge film manufacturing/processing investment, but whatever the case actually was with Kodak there were others who were happy to pick up the digital ball and run with it, and even while that was happening Kodak only finally made digital cameras with features and styling that would not seriously challenge those available from other brands who by then were further along the digital curve…alas by by Kodak.
I think Kodak could be excused in some part because when originally assessing the viability of digital imaging ‘way back when’ today’s high capacity re-chargeable Lithium batteries (and large capacity micro memory cards) were not available to be included in the assessment, it’s those batteries (and memory) that changed the face of digital imaging beyond imagination being capable of running a very powerful imaging system without being drained of charge in a very short time.
Greg

Indeed it was Tom. In 1977 I was hired to edit 'Light Reading', Kodak's technical journal. One of the projects was Technical Pan film. I ran tests, and found that Paterson Acuspecial developer clearly produced by far the best results - far superior to what Kodak called 'POTA' (a simple metol-sulfite diluted brew) 'invented' by one of their research staff. They refused to allow any mention of alternative developers from Neofin, Paterson, Acu Inc - and I parted company with them, and did not edit any further issues.

David

UrsaMajor wrote:

Greg Beetham wrote:It’s almost like Sony is self destruct mode most of the time, natural disasters or no natural disasters.

I think that it is simple arrogance. Their past success has created a culture of, "We know better than other people. If we did not think of it first, it must not be a good idea."

I've seen that attitude at other companies - in some cases from very close proximity. I've also seen some opinions expressed that say this was a factor in the downfall of Kodak, although I cannot say from personal observation whether or not those opinions may have merit.

With best wishes,
- Tom -

Just a little more detail in today's Register
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2012/0 ... y_centres/