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Polaroid is an American business that has passed through several corporations and, , is a brand licensor to companies that distribute consumer electronics and eyewear. It is best known for its Polaroid instant film and cameras. The original company was founded in 1937 by Edwin H. Land, to exploit the use of its Polaroid polarizing polymer. Land ran the company until 1981. Its peak employment was 21,000 in 1978, and its peak revenue was $3 billion in 1991. The Polaroid business passed through bankruptcy twice in the 2000s. ==Overview== Polaroid’s initial (dominant) market was in polarized sunglasses — spawned from Edwin H. Land’s self-guided research in light polarization. Land, having completed his freshman year at Harvard University, left to pursue this market, resulting in Polaroid's birth. Land later returned to Harvard in continuing his research further. Polaroid developed an instant movie system, Polavision, based on the Dufaycolor process. The product arrived on the market when videotape-based systems were rapidly gaining popularity. As a result, Polavision was unsuccessful and most of the manufactured products were sold off as a job lot — at great cost to the company. The underlying technology of Polavision was later improved for use in the Polachrome instant slide film system. The company also was one of the early manufacturers of digital cameras, with the PDC-2000 in 1996; however, they failed to capture a large market share in that segment. They also made 35 mm and multi format scanners, such as Polaroid SpiritScan 4000 35 mm scanner (the first scanner with a 4000 DPI CCD) in 1999, and the Polaroid PrintScan 120 in 2000. The scanners received mixed reviews and saw heavy competition from Nikon and Minolta products. The entire line was discontinued when Polaroid entered bankruptcy in 2001. On October 11, 2001, Polaroid Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Almost all the company’s assets (including the “Polaroid” name itself — synonymous with instant photographs) were sold to a subsidiary of Bank One. They went on to form a new company, which also operates under the name “Polaroid Corporation”.〔("Polaroid and One Equity Partners Complete Asset Acquisition" ), New Polaroid Corporation. Press release dated 2002-07-31, Retrieved 2006-12-01.〕 It stopped making Polaroid cameras in 2007 and discontinued the sale of Polaroid film after 2009 to the dismay of loyal consumers. The renamed “old” Polaroid now exists solely as an administrative shell.〔(Front page ), Primary PDC website. Retrieved 2006-11-30.〕 Polaroid’s bankruptcy is widely attributed to the failure of senior management — unable to anticipate the impact of digital cameras on its film business.〔Tripsas, M. & Gavetti, G. (2000), (Capabilities, cognition, and inertia: evidence from digital imaging ), Strategic Management Journal, vol. 21, 1147–1161.〕 This type of managerial failure is also known as the success trap. On December 18, 2008, the post-reorganization Polaroid Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Minnesota. The bankruptcy filing came shortly after the criminal investigation of its parent company, Petters Group Worldwide, and the parent company founder, Tom Petters. On January 5, 2010, Polaroid appointed Lady Gaga as "Creative Director" for the company. A press release stated that she would be the "new face" of Polaroid. Since March 2010, instant film materials for vintage Polaroid cameras have again become available on the market, developed and manufactured by a group called The Impossible Project, at the former Polaroid production plant in Enschede, Netherlands. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Polaroid Corporation」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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