后胶片时代的探索之路：“柯达币”能否让柯达咸鱼翻身？

作为胶片时代的天之骄子，柯达在数码时代教科书式的陨落给我们留下了很多警醒。死而不僵的柯达是否还有凭借“大杀器”重回巅峰的可能？

最近柯达公司推出了一种名叫“柯达币”的数字加密货币，以及一个用于对照片进行存储、验证和版权管理的平台。这也是柯达进军数字加密货币领域的首次尝试。

今日的柯达在数字加密货币领域冲劲十足，与以前应对变革大势时迟钝木讷的老柯达形成了鲜明对比。在当年的胶片时代，柯达满足于蹭蹭往上涨的营收和市场占有率，几乎是坐视富士等竞争对手在数码照片市场攻城掠地而不动如山。柯达此次在数字加密货币上的发力也让投资者惊喜不已，受此影响，柯达股价几乎翻了三倍。不过也有些批评人士认为，柯达的数字加密货币新战略虽然搏人眼球，却没有什么实际价值。不过从现实来看，现在就评价这一战略的成败还为时过早。

柯达的数字加密货币战略是有可能创造价值的，不过这取决于它的新产品和服务是否能得到很好的部署，以及其目标市场和竞争对手的反应。

首先，让我们来细数柯达公司最近的几大动态：一是推出了一个照片存储、版权管理和支付交易管理平台，二是对“柯达币”进行了首次公开发币（ICO）。

版权管理平台

为了重新吸引摄影爱好者，该平台不仅能储存照片，还具备防盗图功能。柯达公司甚至表示，该平台还可以通过“持续网页搜索”技术主动防止盗图行为。随着摄影爱好者越来越关注版权相关问题，该平台的技术显然是具有很大潜力的。

问题是：柯达的这项技术是不是像它承诺的这样好用？它是否比现在流行的水印等版权保护技术更先进？它的持续搜索技术防止网络盗图的效率怎样？要想达到比较好的效果，就需要强大的图像处理能力来识别相同或相似图像。如果柯达确实在这方面做得很好，它很可能将成为一个摄影爱好者趋之若鹜的平台，为各方均创造价值。

基于平台的交易

除了保护照片版权，柯达还希望摄影师能与客户在同一平台上进行交易，而不是通过第三方支付系统（比如Paypal或Venmo）进行交易。理论上讲，这种一站式交易会赋予用户更大的便利性，同时柯达也能对用户行为有更大的控制权，并且掌握更多的有用数据。

比如说，柯达公司通过研究交易行为，可以判断哪些摄影师和哪些摄影领域更加高产、更加受网友欢迎，然后以他们作为特定产品（相机、镜头等）和服务的主要目标。不过这仍然需要柯达在平台上一些优于竞争对手的卖点，比如免手续费（如Venmo）、安全性（如Paypal）、便利性（如Paypal和Venmo）等。当然要想盈利并不容易。柯达是否会在平台上基于信用卡交易收取手续费？用户交了钱，是否能收到满意的产品？这些都有待观察。

柯达币

随着“柯达币”于1月底ICO，柯达也将正式进入加密数字货币这个时下大火的行业。不过目前这一领域已经被比特币等少数币种主宰。柯达为什么要走数字加密货币这一步呢？有种看法认为，发行数字货币是一种低成本融资的方法，以柯达目前的融资能力，靠传统方式融资显然是有些吃力的。不过除了融资目的之外，这一战略还能促进购币者成为柯达平台的早期采用者。另外柯达平台上的用户（摄影师和客户）越多，平台上的柯达币用户也就会越多，二者将相成为相辅相成的关系。

不过新平台也好，新货币也罢，也都会面临自己的“二十二条军规”——没有用户，它们是很难增长的。在当前时代，你要想获得大量用户，本身就得先拥有大量用户。柯达币的ICO可以激励那些已经在平台上投资的人，使他们成为柯达品牌和柯达币的“大使”。目前来看，柯达公司似乎打的是这样两个如意算盘：第一，柯达币的成功不会受“比特币泡沫”的影响而导致柯达币贬值，并造成柯达公司或投资者在短期内蒙受较大损失；第二，富士公司等竞争对手不会携更好的平台或相似的数字货币产品进入该领域。这样看来，柯达不管发行的是什么币，这都不啻于一场豪赌。

如前所述，尽管人们对柯达的数字货币政策有各种预期，但现在还很难说局面将向何处发展。不过对这些新产品及其背景的分析表明，柯达是可以通过它们创造价值的。只是柯达公司必须记住，第一个宣布建立平台的人，未必一定能获得先行优势和网络效应，它们往往只属于那些提供了最高产品质量的竞争者。（财富中文网）

本文作者Sarit Markovich是美国西北大学克洛格管理学院的商业策略学副教授。

译者：朴成奎 

Can Kodak, best known these days as a textbook case of failing to adjust to the Digital Age, make the ultimate comeback?

That’s the question raised by the company’s recent debut of KodakCoin and a digital platform for storage, authentication, and rights-management of photographs—a foray into the surging domains of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency.

On one hand, the move seems to represent a stark contrast to the Kodak of old, which stood by and watched Fuji and other competitors capitalize on the advent of digital photos while its own revenue and share of the photography market imploded. Investors have rewarded the move by tripling Kodak’s stock price. On the other, critics have argued that Kodak’s new strategy, while attention-grabbing, creates little real value. In reality, it’s too early to tell.

Kodak’s strategy could create value—but it depends on how well the iconic business deploys the new products and services, and the reactions of their target market and competitors.

Let’s consider these dynamics for the related offerings in question: one platform for photo storage and rights management, along with payment/transaction management; and the initial coin offering (ICO) for KodakCoin.

Rights-management platform

Kodak (KODK, +8.33%) wants to attract photographers with a platform that will not only house their pictures, but protect them from unauthorized use. The company is even touting technology that will search proactively for infringement through “continual web-crawling” and alert users. There is large potential value here, as this solves mounting rights-related problems for photographers.

The caveat: The Kodak technology has to work as promised. Will it be superior to current means of rights protection, such as digital watermarks? How well will the technology crawl the web to spot rights-infringement? This requires strong image-processing technology to identify identical or similar images. If done well, it will likely become a go-to platform for photographers, creating value for all parties.

Platform-based transactions

Beyond protecting the rights to pictures, Kodak wants to enable photographers—small sellers—to transact with customers on the same platform that houses their images, rather than through outside payment processors such as Paypal (PYPL, +0.98%) or Venmo. In theory, that would afford users greater convenience—one-stop transactions—while providing Kodak valuable control over more user activities, along with a trove of usable data.

For example, the business could study transactions to identify more popular, higher-volume photographers or field of photography and target them with specific products (cameras and lenses), services, and offers. But again, Kodak has to offer something superior than what’s already out there. In this case, that means free (like Venmo), protected (like Paypal), convenient (like Paypal and Venmo) transactions for users. That’s challenging to do profitably —will Kodak pick up fees to credit-card-based funds onto the platform, for example? Will Kodak be liable for transferred funds that were not rewarded with a satisfying product?

KodakCoin

With the end-of-January ICO of KodakCoin, the business is entering the cryptocurrency domain, a market all over the headlines, but already dominated by Bitcoin and others. Why is Kodak making this move? One argument is that it’s a cheap way to access capital—something Kodak may not be able to do easily from traditional investors these days. Beyond generating cash, the strategy can provide incentive for buyers of the new currency to be the early adopters of the Kodak platform: The more users of the platform (photographers and customers), the more KodakCoin users there are, and thus the greater the value of both.

But new online platforms—and cryptocurrencies, for that matter—always face a Catch-22: They can’t grow without users, and it’s hard to get lots of users without a critical mass of them in the first place. The ICO could act to motivate those who’ve already invested in the platform to act as ambassadors of the Kodak brand, and thus of KodakCoin. But Kodak is likely betting that (1) any success with the cryptocurrency won’t be based on a mounting “Bitcoin bubble,” resulting in devaluation of the coin, and thus large, near-term losses for Kodak and the investors, and (2) players like Fuji won’t enter the market with a better platform or currency offerings. That may be a substantial bet, whatever the currency it’s made with.

As suggested earlier, despite all the prognostication about Kodak’s new crypto strategy, it’s hard to say exactly what will happen. But analysis of the new offerings and their context suggests that Kodak could drive value with them. The business just has to remember that “first announcer” of a new platform doesn’t necessarily get first-mover advantages and network effects. Those usually go to an early player with the highest-quality offerings.

Sarit Markovich is clinical associate professor of strategy at The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.