Founded: 1937
NAIC: 325992 Photographic Film, Paper, Plate, and Chemical Manufacturing; 333315 Photographic and Photocopying Equipment Manufacturing; 334119 Other Computer Peripheral Equipment Manufacturing; 334310 Audio and Video Equipment Manufacturing; 334419 Other Electronic Component Manufacturing; 511210 Software Publishers
SIC: 3861 Photographic Equipment & Supplies; 3577 Computer Peripheral Equipment Nec; 3651 Household Audio & Video Equipment; 3679 Electronic Components Nec; 7372 Prepackaged Software
Best known for its pioneering line of instant cameras, which were first produced under the guidance of company founder Edwin H. Land in 1948, Polaroid Corporation has been reincarnated as a producer of a variety of consumer electronics products. The original Polaroid Corporation had sunk into bankruptcy in 2001 as digital cameras steadily eroded the market for instant photography. A new Polaroid soon emerged and was acquired in 2005 by Petters Group Worldwide, LLC, a privately held conglomerate whose portfolio includes a variety of consumer product companies. Under Petters' stewardship, Polaroid continues to churn out instant film, but its core business has evolved into a line of Polaroid-branded consumer electronics, including digital cameras, LCD televisions, and portable DVD players. Through a partnership with ZINK Imaging, Inc., the company is also pursuing a new wave of instant photography in the form of a line of digital instant printers and cameras that output full-color digital photos without using any ink. Among other Polaroid products are security ID-card systems designed for various commercial applications.
Beginnings in Polarization Research
In 1926 Edwin Land's desire to create useful products based on scientific invention prompted him to pursue independent research on polarization rather than to return to Harvard University after his freshman year. After creating a prototype synthetic polarizer in New York, Land returned to Harvard in 1929. A polarizing material selectively screens light waves. It could, for example, block waves of light that create glare while allowing other waves through. With the help of George Wheelwright III, a young Harvard physics instructor, Land obtained access to a laboratory and began producing small sheets of polarizing material. Land applied to patent this process in 1929, and a patent was granted in 1934. In June 1932, eager to explore the invention's practical applications, Land and Wheelwright abandoned their academic careers and founded Land-Wheelwright Laboratories, backed with Wheelwright's capital.
In 1933 the men incorporated their laboratory. Land-Wheelwright's staff--Land, Wheelwright, their wives, and a handful of other researchers--concentrated on developing polarizing material for no-glare car headlights and windshields. Enthusiasm for their work ran high, but commercial success eluded the Land-Wheelwright crew. Rebuffed by carmakers in Detroit, the company had no customers during the height of the Great Depression.
Photography giant Eastman Kodak Company provided the company's first financial break when it made a $10,000 order for photographic polarizing filters, later dubbed Polafilters. These plates, which consisted of a sheet of polarizing material sealed between two glass discs, increased contrast and decreased glare in photographs taken in bright light. Land-Wheelwright accepted the order and delivered the filters to Kodak. By this time, a friend, Professor Clarence Kennedy of Smith College, had dubbed the material "Polaroid," and the name was adopted in 1935. That same year, Land negotiated with American Optical Company to produce polarized sunglasses. Such glasses could screen out glare rather than simply darken the landscape, and Land-Wheelwright contracted to begin production of Polaroid Day Glasses, a longtime source of revenue for Polaroid.
In 1937 Land formed Polaroid Corporation to acquire the operations that he and Wheelwright had begun. Eight original shareholders fronted $375,000 to back Land and his projects. They invested in Land and his ideas, allotting him a voting trust of stock that gave him control of the company for the next decade. Wheelwright left the company in 1940 to become a navy lieutenant and never rejoined the firm. Researchers had devised a number of commercial applications for Polaroid polarizing sheets (such as desk lamps, variable-density windows, lenses, and three-dimensional photographs called Vectographs) but most of these products never became significantly profitable.
Polaroid continued to court the major automakers, attempting to induce one of them to demonstrate its headlight system at the 1939 New York World's Fair. The carmakers all refused the project, but Chrysler Corporation agreed to run a Polaroid three-dimensional (3-D) movie at its display. Audiences dodged water that seemed to spray out of a garden hose into the crowd and gawked through Polaroid-made glasses of oppositely polarized lenses as an automobile appeared to dance itself together in the air above them. The public loved 3-D, but filmmakers were content with the magic of color and sound, and passed over the new technology.
In another unsuccessful marketing project, variable-density windows were installed on the observation car of the City of Los Angeles. Two polarized discs were mounted in the train wall; by means of a knob, passengers could turn the inner disk so that the window gradually became grayer until it was completely dark. As with the 3-D process, the novelty of polarized windows was not hugely successful.
Contributions to World War II Effort
In 1939 Day Glasses were the source of most of Polaroid's $35,000 profit. Although sales rose to $1 million in 1941, the company's 1940 losses had reached $100,000, and it was only World War II military contracts that saved Land and his 240 employees. By 1942 the wartime economy had tripled Polaroid's size. A $7 million navy contract to work on the Dove heat-seeking missile project was the largest contract Polaroid had ever had, although the bomb was not used during World War II. Polaroid produced a number of other products for the armed forces, including a device that determined an aircraft's elevation above the horizon, an infrared night viewing device, goggles, lenses, color filters for periscopes, and range finders.
Also during the war, the 3-D technology was employed in a machine-gunner training unit. Polaroid designed a trainer in which the student operated a life-size antiaircraft gun against the 3-D simulation of an attacking plane. Reconnaissance planes were equipped to take 3-D Vectographs, which provided relief maps of enemy territory. When viewed with polarized glasses, the 3-D pictures exposed contours of guns, planes, and buildings that camouflage obscured in conventional photographs. Vectographs were used in planning almost all Allied invasions, including that of Normandy. By the end of the war, in 1945, Polaroid's sales had reached $16 million. As military contracts declined, though, so did staff, and Polaroid was down to about 900 employees, from a wartime high of 1,250. Sales fell to just $4 million in 1946 and were less than $2 million in 1947.
1948 Debut of Instant Photography
By 1946 Land had realized that Polaroid Corporation was in deep trouble. Land also had come to believe that instant photography was Polaroid's only research line with potential to save the company. Land had first considered developing instant photography technology in 1943, when, on Christmas Day, his three-year-old daughter asked to see the photographs her parents had taken earlier that day. Prompted by his daughter's query, Land conceived, in a flash, an instant self-developing film and a camera that would process it. By 1946, however, the research on the film was far from complete. Nonetheless, Land announced early that year that the instant camera system would be demonstrated at the February 21, 1947, winter meeting of the Optical Society of America. Working around the clock, Polaroid scientists developed a working model of the system, which allowed Land to take an instant picture of himself at the Optical Society meeting. The photograph developed itself within a minute. The image of Land peeling back the negative paper from an instantly produced picture of himself made front page news in the New York Times, was given a full page in Life magazine, and was splashed across the international press.
It was not until November 26, 1948, that the camera was offered to the public by Jordan Marsh, Boston's oldest department store. The original camera, the Land Model 95, which weighed five pounds when loaded, sold for $89.75; film cost $1.75 for eight sepia-toned exposures. On the first day the camera was offered, demonstrators sold all 56 of the available units, and the cameras kept selling as fast as the factory could produce them. First-year photographic sales exceeded $5 million. By 1950 more than 4,000 dealers sold Polaroid cameras, when only a year earlier Kodak had virtually monopolized the U.S. photography market.
The 1950s were a decade of rapid expansion. Sales mounted, spurred on by an aggressive television advertising campaign. Instant photography could be demonstrated graphically on television. Black-and-white film was introduced in 1950 to an enthusiastic public. Enthusiasm quickly turned to ire, however, as the black-and-white images began to fade and disappear. Unable to develop a nonfading black-and-white film, Polaroid provided sponge-tipped tubes of a liquid polymer, which the consumers hand applied to each picture to set the image. This awkward process was not eliminated until 1963.
Despite the inconvenience, demand for instant photography held. To accommodate growing sales, Polaroid built a plant in Waltham, Massachusetts. The company's common stock was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1957. Polaroid formed its first international subsidiaries in 1959, in Frankfurt and Toronto. In 1960 it established Nippon Polaroid Kabushiki Kaisha in Japan and licensed a Japanese firm to produce two cameras for overseas sale.
During the 1960s Polaroid continued to offer improvements and variations on the original instant film and camera, although other products were also introduced. Polaroid's first color film was introduced in 1963, along with a pack-loading black-and-white film. In 1965 the inexpensive Swinger was pitched to teens. Selling for less than $20, the camera took only black-and-white pictures, sustaining the market for Polaroid black-and-white film. In 1966 the ID-2 Land Identification system was introduced. It produced full-color laminated cards in two minutes, allowing the company to provide instant driver's licenses and other photo identification cards. In 1967 Polaroid began construction on several new factories to boost production of cameras, film, color negatives, and chemicals. The company's stock split two for one in 1968. During the late 1960s Polaroid was outpacing other top stock market performers. In 1970 sales reached $500 million.
In October 1970 two black workers at Polaroid called upon other black employees to leave their jobs until Polaroid ceased all business in South Africa. Polaroid had no subsidiaries or investments in the country, but its products were distributed through Frank & Hirsch and some items were sold directly to the government. South African commerce accounted for less than 0.1 percent of the company's annual profits. Polaroid sent two black and two white employees to South Africa to assess the situation, and in 1971 the company decided to stop selling its products to the South African government. In addition, black workers at Frank & Hirsch would receive equal pay for equal work and be educated for promotion. Polaroid established a foundation to subsidize black education in South Africa, and made $25,000 in contributions to black cultural associations. Polaroid ended its association with Frank & Hirsch in 1977.
Debut of the SX-70 in 1972
In 1972 the October cover of Life magazine featured a cluster of children grasping after a photograph whizzing out of the new SX-70 wielded by inventor Land. The revolutionary SX-70 was the first integrated camera and film system, and the pictures developed outside the camera by themselves. The public eagerly purchased the camera. Despite the fact that sales in the early 1970s continued to grow at a rate of 20 percent per year, the tremendous expense of research, manufacturing, and marketing for the SX-70 caused earnings to fall. Financial analysts began to question Polaroid's stability. In 1974 Polaroid executives admitted that the company did not expect to make more than $3 a share that year. Actually, earnings were only 86 cents per share. Polaroid stock plummeted. By July 1974, just 26 months after the SX-70 was introduced, the stock had fallen from $149 to $14.
In 1975 Land turned the presidency of Polaroid over to Bill McCune, a senior vice-president who had been with the company since 1939 and had worked closely with Land on the development of the first instant camera and film. Manufacture of the SX-70 remained very costly, and numerous design features required modification. Yet Land was satisfied with the camera and wished to pursue research on Polavision, an instant motion picture system. McCune and others, however, favored improving the SX-70. Highly skeptical of Polavision, McCune wanted to base new product lines on market research, rather than following Land's method of creating a consumer demand for Polaroid's latest invention. Land introduced Polavision at the 1977 annual meeting, and a limited introduction followed. Although a scientific marvel, the instant films lasted only two-and-a-half minutes and were silent. Videotaping was just hitting the market, and so Polavision was never a consumer success.
Land received his 500th patent and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1977. Polaroid's corporate culture began to shift when McCune was voted CEO in 1980. While Land's entrepreneurial drive had created the company, a more diversified, market-oriented management was needed to continue to propel it. In 1982 Land retired fully, devoting his attention to research at the Rowland Institute for Science, which he had founded in 1965. The company founder died in 1991 at age 81.
In the meantime, Polaroid in 1977 introduced the OneStep Land camera, an inexpensive fixed-focus camera backed by a television advertising campaign featuring the actors Mariette Hartley and James Garner. The OneStep reigned for four years as the best-selling camera, instant or conventional, in the United States.
In 1976 Polaroid entered a costly and lengthy patent-infringement battle with Eastman Kodak Company. Kodak had been producing the negative component of Polaroid's black-and-white film since 1944, and its color negative since 1957. With the introduction of the Polaroid SX-70, though, Kodak terminated its partnership with Polaroid, and began its own instant-photography research. In 1976 Kodak introduced the EK-4 and EK-6 instant cameras and PR-10 instant film. Polaroid filed suit within a week, charging 12 patent infringements in camera film and design.
Legal preparations dragged on for five years, until the trial began in October 1981. Ten of the 12 original counts were pressed. After 75 days of testimony and three years of deliberation, U.S. District Court Judge Rya Zobel ruled that seven of the ten Polaroid patents were valid and had been infringed upon. As a result, Kodak's line of instant-photography products was terminated in 1986. When settlement talks began, Polaroid claimed about $6.1 billion in damages, lost sales, and interest. The case was not settled until 1991 and resulted in a payment by Eastman Kodak of $925 million.
Fending Off a Hostile Takeover, 1988-89
In August 1988 Shamrock Holdings, Inc., offered to buy Polaroid at $40 a share plus 40 percent of the award from the Kodak settlement. Polaroid's board of directors rejected the offer, and soon after, the company sold 14 percent of its outstanding shares to an employee stock ownership program (ESOP). Shamrock charged that the ESOP was a form of management entrenchment, and sued. Delaware courts upheld Polaroid's position, and Shamrock raised its offer to $45 a share. Polaroid's board again rejected the offer and subsequently announced a $1.1 billion common stock buyback. Shamrock again sued Polaroid in February 1989 for management entrenchment, but Polaroid's tactics were again upheld. The fight against Shamrock was led by Chairman McCune and I. MacAllister Booth, who had become president in 1983 and CEO in 1985. The pair pruned Polaroid staff in the early 1980s and reorganized the company into three divisions: consumer photography, industrial photography, and magnetic media.
The first success reaped from this new marketing strategy was the Spectra, introduced in 1986. The upscale Spectra came out of market research indicating that instant camera users wanted better picture quality. Again responding to this desire, Polaroid introduced Hybrid IV, an instant film of near 35-millimeter quality, during the early 1990s. Polaroid also introduced a line of conventional film and videotapes starting in 1989. Marketing strategies also continued to become more sophisticated. In 1990 a $60 million advertising campaign emphasized new uses for instant cameras. Suggested uses included recording household items for insurance purposes or keeping a visual record of properties when house hunting. In addition, the company cultivated its nonconsumer markets, which contributed at least 40 percent of photographic sales.
While Polaroid's product lines became more fully guided by market demand, Polaroid continued to be a research-and-development-driven company. By the early 1990s, the company had become the world market leader in instant photography and electronic imaging, and a major world manufacturer and marketer of conventional films, videotapes, and light polarizing filters and lenses. In addition to its instant photography products, Polaroid had by the early 1990s developed a presence in the medical imaging field, with such products as the 1993-released Helios medical laser imaging system, which produced a medical diagnostic image without chemical processing, and the Polaroid EMS Photo Kit, a camera specifically designed for the 35,000 emergency medical team (EMT) squads in the United States. A series of electronic imaging products were also developed for the business segment, including desktop computer film recorders, the Polaroid CI-5000 and CI-3000, and the CS-500i Digital Photo Scanner. In addition, Polaroid developed the ProCam, an instant camera earmarked for the business customer.
For the nonprofessional or amateur consumer, the long-awaited "Joshua" instant camera was introduced first in Europe in 1992, and then in the United States as "Captiva" in the summer of 1993. Captiva, indistinguishable in appearance from a 35-millimeter camera, took high-quality instant photos that were not ejected in the usual manner, but stored in the rear of the camera, which in turn contained a viewing window enabling the user to see the development of the last exposed frame. Because the photos were smaller than regular-sized 35-millimeter pictures, the camera appealed to those whose lifestyles favored a more compact and instant camera. "HighDefinition" instant film for the amateur photographer came on the market in 1992, further closing the gap in quality between 35-millimeter and instant film.
Mounting Late-Century Troubles
In the mid- to late 1990s Polaroid faced an increasingly uncertain future. Overall sales were stagnant, the $2.15 billion figure of 1992 being repeated in 1997, before a more dismal result was announced for 1998: $1.89 billion. Demand for instant film was on the decline, in part because of the rapid growth of one-hour photo shops for conventional film and as well as the ascendance of digital cameras, and the company's other forays were less than total successes. The Captiva had a very strong debut, but then sales dropped off and Polaroid cut back production.
Booth retired in late 1995 and was replaced as chairman and CEO by Gary T. DiCamillo, who had been an executive at the Black & Decker Corporation, where he earned a reputation for cost-cutting, improving productivity, and rapidly developing new products. Soon after taking over, DiCamillo initiated a restructuring at Polaroid, which included a workforce cut of about 15 percent, or 1,570 jobs, and a charge of $247 million for 1995, leading to a net loss of $140.2 million for the year. DiCamillo also overhauled the company's management team, bringing in additional marketing and product development-oriented leaders from such firms as RJR Nabisco and Kraft Foods.
Further changes came in 1996. Polaroid largely abandoned its venture into medical imaging, an area in which it had invested about $800 million, selling the bulk of its loss-making Helios unit to Sterling Diagnostic Imaging Inc. This sale led in part to a $33 million charge recorded in 1996, a year in which the company reported a net loss of $41.1 million.
The new management team at Polaroid concentrated on rolling out 30 to 40 new products each year, aiming to diversify the company's offerings. These included a disposable flashlight, alkaline batteries, a new line of polarized sunglasses, and the firm's first digital camera, the PDC 2000, which debuted in 1996. Polaroid in December 1997 announced an additional workforce reduction of 15 percent, or about 1,500 jobs. The company took another restructuring charge of $323.5 million, resulting in a 1997 net loss of $126.7 million. During 1998 Polaroid announced additional job cuts of 600 to 700 employees, took a restructuring charge of $50 million, and posted a net loss of $51 million. The worldwide economic difficulties that began in 1997 proved particularly troublesome for Polaroid, which had long generated a significant portion of its revenue outside the United States. The hardest hit market for Polaroid was Russia, which had been the company's second largest market in 1995, accounting for $200 million in revenues; for 1998 Polaroid sold only about $25 million worth of goods in that economically troubled nation.
As Polaroid's red ink continued to flow, speculation about a possible takeover was rife. In addition, while DiCamillo had initially emphasized broadening the company's product mix when he came on board, he announced in early 1999 that he was considering selling four business units--sunglasses, graphic arts, glare-reducing polarizers, and holography--that had been key components of his diversification efforts. DiCamillo said that he wanted to focus the company on its core instant photography business. The emphasis would also be on the consumer market, with particular attention given to developing youth-oriented instant cameras, such as the I-Zone Instant Pocket Camera, which was a slender camera that produced miniature instant prints. The Pocket Camera had been a great success following its May 1998 debut in the Osaka region of Japan, and was released in the United States in the summer of 1999. Also introduced by the company in 1999 were PopShots, the first instant one-time-use camera, and the JoyCam, a smaller, economically priced version of Polaroid's standard instant camera.
Into Bankruptcy
Strong sales of the new youth-oriented items enabled Polaroid in 1999 to post its first annual profit, $9 million, since 1994. Revenues increased for the first time since 1996, rising 7 percent to $1.98 billion. On a historical scale, this turnaround in the making ended almost instantly. Sales dropped off in the second half of 2000 as the economy worsened and the initial lure of the new products began to fade. By the fourth quarter of that year, Polaroid was back in the red, and in early 2001 the company announced it would suspend payment of a dividend after having continuously paid dividends since 1952.
Polaroid was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy as its massive debt load had grown to more than $930 million. The firm had been deeply in debt ever since its late 1980s financial maneuvering to fend off the Shamrock hostile takeover. In February 2001 Polaroid announced another restructuring involving a workforce reduction of 11 percent, or 950 employees. Just four months later, the company unveiled plans to slash 2,000 more jobs, or a quarter of its remaining workers, and then a month after that began exploring a total or partial sale of the company assets. During the first six months of 2001, Polaroid suffered an operating loss of $170 million on sales of $664 million. Finally, on October 12, 2001, Polaroid was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Controversy surrounded the bankruptcy from the start. Especially contentious was the treatment of Polaroid's rank-and-file workers and company retirees, particularly in comparison to that of the firm's executives and directors, who were the recipients of large payments and bonuses. In addition to the massive layoffs, the company terminated the healthcare and retirement benefits of retirees to save money, and eventually Polaroid's underfunded pension fund was taken over by a government agency, which slashed the retirees' monthly retirement checks. Since the implementation of the ESOP, Polaroid workers had been required to take part of their pay in the form of company stock, but were largely barred from selling the stock while still employed. The stock price had steadily fallen to little more than a quarter per share by the time of the filing. Ultimately, the employee shareholders received next to nothing for their stock. On July 31, 2002, the assets of Polaroid were sold for $255 million, what Business Week termed "a song." Via this deal, a private-equity unit of Bank One Corporation secured a 65 percent stake in a newly organized Polaroid Corporation, while unsecured creditors got the other 35 percent. In a further blow to Polaroid's Massachusetts workers, the firm closed its Waltham plant around this same time, shifting film assembly to plants in Mexico and the Netherlands.
Development of a New Polaroid Model
DiCamillo had resigned from Polaroid in May 2002, leaving the firm in the hands of its finance chief and a top lawyer. That November, Jacques Nasser, the former CEO of Ford Motor Company, was named nonexecutive chairman. Finally, in March 2003, a new CEO was brought onboard, J. Michael Pocock, a former executive of Compaq Computer Corporation. That year, Polaroid introduced a sleeker and more contemporary successor to its OneStep camera, the Polaroid One, and also sold its commercial optics division to Precision Optical Systems, Inc.
By the end of 2003 the workforce had been trimmed to just 3,400 employees, a far cry from the firm's peak employment level of nearly 21,000, which occurred in 1978 when Polaroid was still an esteemed technology leader. Financially, the new Polaroid had virtually no debt and was able to post a profit of $71.3 million on sales of $752.7 million in 2003. Its principal products remained instant cameras and film, with additional lines in sunglasses and security ID-card systems for commercial applications.
Perhaps most importantly for the long term, however, the company began a concerted push to extend the still well-respected Polaroid brand into new market segments through licensing deals. Most notably, Petters Group Worldwide, LLC, obtained a license to affix the Polaroid brand to the previously generic consumer electronics products it had been selling, including portable DVD players and plasma televisions. This Polaroid line was launched in 2003. In addition, the Hong Kong-based World Wide Licenses Limited, a subsidiary of Character Group plc of the United Kingdom, was granted a worldwide license to produce and sell Polaroid brand digital cameras.
In May 2004 shares in Polaroid again began trading publicly, albeit over the counter. By that year, the licensing strategy was clearly bearing fruit. Petters Group, a Minnetonka, Minnesota, concern that had previously acquired and reinvigorated the Fingerhut catalog company, generated around $300 million in revenues in 2004 from Polaroid-branded televisions and DVD players produced mainly by Chinese contract manufacturers and sold in the United States through the discount outlets of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., and Target Corporation. Encouraged by this successful start, Petters soon reached a deal to acquire Polaroid outright.
2005 Forward: The Petters Era
Petters Group Worldwide completed its acquisition of Polaroid in April 2005 for $426 million. Polaroid thus became a wholly owned subsidiary of Petters. One of Petters' immediate goals was to begin introducing Polaroid-branded consumer electronics products in overseas markets. Initially led by the parent company's founder, chairman, and CEO, Tom Petters, Polaroid in August 2007 gained a new CEO, Michael London. The new leader was a 35-year veteran of the retail industry, most recently serving for a decade as an executive at consumer electronics giant Best Buy Co., Inc. Around this same time, Polaroid was in the process of shifting its headquarters from Waltham to an office building at 300 Baker Avenue in Concord, Massachusetts, with the move slated to be consummated sometime in 2008. Also in 2007, the company sold its eyewear division to Ormond Beach, Florida-based StyleMark Inc., which gained the right to produce and distribute Polaroid brand sunglasses.
In January 2008 Polaroid unveiled its latest product lineup at the annual International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. By this time, Polaroid had quickly become the leading consumer brand of portable DVD players in the United States and also held the top spot in mass-market digital cameras. In addition, Polaroid was among the top five brands of LCD televisions in North America. Beyond these products and its continued production of instant film, Polaroid was venturing even wider into consumer electronics, including its Freescape line of digital media-sharing products, which were designed to enable consumers to "unlock" the digital content they had stored in their various electronics devices (e.g., computers, digital cameras, portable music players) and channel them into a central home entertainment center.
One other product unveiled at the 2008 CES show pointed to a potential new era for Polaroid instant photography. A promising area of research at the time of the company's bankruptcy filing involved instant digital printing. In its troubled state, Polaroid was unable to fund further development of this innovation and eventually, in 2005, sold the technologies behind it to a group of investors. They called their startup ZINK Imaging, Inc., the ZINK standing for "zero ink." ZINK collaborated with Polaroid on the development of a line of printing products using this ink-free printing technology. The printers used heat to activate and colorize dye crystals that had been embedded in paper specially designed for the devices. At CES, Polaroid announced plans to begin selling later in 2008 a pocket-sized mobile ZINK printer able to quickly produce small color photos from digital cameras and camera phones. Although Polaroid was clearly no longer the technological juggernaut of its heyday, the ZINK devices provided a promising, and highly fitting, avenue for leveraging what remained a powerful brand.
Principal Subsidiaries
Polaroid Latin America Corporation; Polaroid (France) S.A.; Polaroid GmbH (Germany); Polaroid Asia Pacific Services Ltd. (Hong Kong); Polaroid Far East Limited (Hong Kong); Polaroid India Pvt. Ltd.; Polaroid (Italia) S.p.A. (Italy); Nippon Polaroid Kabushiki Kaisha (Japan); Polaroid de Mexico S.A. de C.V.; Polaroid (Europa) B.V. (Netherlands); Polaroid Trading B.V. (Russia); Polaroid España, S.A. (Spain); Polaroid AG (Switzerland); Polaroid (U.K.) Limited.
Principal Competitors
Eastman Kodak Company; FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation; Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.; Sony Corporation; Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.; SANYO Electric Co., Ltd.; Canon Inc.; Olympus Corporation; Seiko Epson Corporation; Toshiba Corporation; Royal Philips Electronics N.V.; Nikon Corporation; Hewlett-Packard Company; Lexmark International, Inc.
Further Reading
Alster, Norm, "Double Exposure," Forbes, September 14, 1992, pp. 408+.
Bailey, Steve, and Steven Syre, "In Hindsight, Perhaps Polaroid Should Have Sold," Boston Globe, October 22, 1998.
Bandler, James, "Polaroid Hopes Its New Inventions Develop into Profits," Wall Street Journal, August 22, 2001, p. B4.
------, "Polaroid Plans to Sell Assets for $265 Million," Wall Street Journal, April 19, 2002, p. A17.
Beam, Alex, "A Troubled Polaroid Is Tearing Down 'The House That Land Built,'" Business Week, April 29, 1985, pp. 51+.
Bernstein, Peter W., "Polaroid Struggles to Get Back into Focus," Fortune, April 7, 1980, pp. 66+.
Blout, Elkan, "Polaroid: Dreams to Reality," Daedalus, Spring 1996, pp. 39+.
Brouillard, Sarah, "Petters Group Pulls Ahead with Polaroid Purchase," Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, May 5, 2006.
Bulkeley, William M., "Polaroid, Emphasizing Marketing Push, Says Cheese: Instant-Camera Maker Hires Kraft's Posa to Rejuvenate Its Stagnant Brand," Wall Street Journal, November 5, 1996, p. B4.
------, "Polaroid to Slash Work Force by 2,000, to 5,500," Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2001, p. A3.
Byrnes, Nanette, and Adrienne Hardman, "Cold Shower: Why Polaroid Shareholders Can Thank Roy Disney for His Aborted Takeover," Financial World, September 28, 1993, pp. 38-39.
Deutsch, Claudia H., "Deep in Debt Since 1988, Polaroid Files for Bankruptcy," New York Times, October 13, 2001, p. C1.
------, "Through a Lens, Digitally: Polaroid Girds for the New Era in Instant Photography," New York Times, March 27, 2000, p. C1.
------, "Touching Up a Faded Polaroid," New York Times, January 3, 1998, pp. D1, D2.
Dumaine, Brian, "How Polaroid Flashed Back," Fortune, February 16, 1987, pp. 72+.
"Edwin Land: Inventor of Polaroid Camera," Los Angeles Times, March 2, 1991.
Elliott, Stuart, "Polaroid Hopes the Flash of a New Campaign Wins Back Its Image of Being on the Cutting Edge," New York Times, October 6, 2003, p. C5.
Gretzner, Bonnie, "Polaroid's Instant Response," Photo Marketing, February 2003, pp. 18, 20.
Hakim, Danny, "Ford's Ex-Chief Hired to Rebuild Polaroid," New York Times, November 12, 2002, p. C4.
Hammonds, Keith H., "Why Polaroid Must Remake Itself--Instantly," Business Week, September 19, 1988, pp. 66+.
Hillman, Michelle, "Polaroid to Exit Iconic Waltham HQ for Concord Space," Boston Business Journal, June 29, 2007.
Klein, Alec, "On a Roll: The Techies Grumbled, but Polaroid's Pocket Turned into a Huge Hit," Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2000, p. A1.
------, "Polaroid Hopes New Cameras Click with Young Users," Wall Street Journal, February 4, 1999, p. B10.
------, "Polaroid May Sell Four Businesses Once Viewed As Key," Wall Street Journal, March 1, 1999, p. B10.
Krasner, Jeffrey, "Bank One Completes Polaroid Deal," Boston Globe, August 1, 2002, p. C1.
------, "A Developing Story: Polaroid Aims to Make Name for Itself by Licensing Brand to Others," Boston Globe, May 10, 2003, p. C1.
------, "DiCamillo Quits Polaroid: Embattled CEO Ends 6-Year Run," Boston Globe, May 9, 2002, p. C1.
------, "Minnesota Firm to Acquire Polaroid," Boston Globe, January 8, 2005, p. E1.
------, "Once-Ailing Polaroid Pays Off for New Owners," Boston Globe, September 18, 2003, p. A1.
------, "Polaroid Agrees to $265M Sale to Bank One Unit," Boston Globe, April 19, 2002, p. A1.
------, "Polaroid Cuts R&D, Digital Plans," Boston Globe, August 2, 2005, p. C1.
Lattman, Peter, "Rebound," Forbes, March 28, 2005, p. 58.
McElheny, Victor K., Insisting on the Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land, Reading, Mass.: Perseus Books, 1998, 510 p.
McWilliams, Gary, "Larry, We Hardly Knew Ye," Business Week, December 27, 1993, p. 40.
------, "A Radical Shift in Focus for Polaroid," Business Week, July 26, 1993, pp. 66-67.
Morgello, Clem, "Booth: Creating a New Polaroid," Dun's Business Month, August 1985, pp. 51+.
Nossiter, Daniel D., "No Instant Success: But New Focus Brightens the Picture at Polaroid," Barron's, July 5, 1982, pp. 11+.
Nulty, Peter, "The New Look of Photography: The Transition from Film to Electronic Imaging," Fortune, July 1, 1991.
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— Elaine Belsito; Updated by David E. Salamie
