Business

GOODBYE POLAROID

By Dave Lowther ⋅ February 25, 2008 ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

COMPANY CLOSES DOOR ON ICONIC CAMERA

Quick snap and it’s the end of an era. Polaroid, the company behind the instant photograph, has stopped making their trademark cameras and film. The digital age destroyed the market for the instant technology and the company are now closing down their factories. They now focus on digital products such as their portable printer, which uses the exclusive Zink tm technology, using heat to colourise 100 billion dye crystals within the special paper and produce a perfect image. Because the device doesn’t use ink it has the advantage of being small, simple and environmentally friendly.

Tom Beaudoin, Company President, told the Associated Press, “We’re trying to reinvent Polaroid so it lives on for the next 30 to 40 years.”

The firm was founded in 1937 and released its first instant camera to the public sixty years ago. Its sales peaked at over £3 billion in 1991 but quickly plummeted during the digital revolution, causing it to go bankrupt in 2001. For those Polaroid enthusiasts of you who still use the films, don’t worry, there is enough film to last till next year and the company hope to sell the license for film production to a smaller company.