今天在※※※※※※上看到的，原文
http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese/simp/hi/newsid_7230000/newsid_7236200/7236235.stm
因为开发即时显影照相机而闻名的美国宝丽莱公司（Polaroid）宣布，他们将会停止生产专用的胶卷。
在数码摄影洪流下，他们的产品几乎已经毫无市场可言。他们也将关闭美国马萨诸塞州、墨西哥和荷兰的生产线。
宝丽莱在大约一年前就停止制造盛极一时的即时显影照相机。
宝丽莱公司主席博杜安告诉美联社说：“我们正努力重塑宝丽莱，使它再活上30到40年。”
他们目前集中于其它生产项目，包括用来打印手机照片的便携式打印机，还有使用宝丽莱品牌的数码照相机。
这家公司在1937年成立，为科学界制造偏光太阳镜片。到1948年推出第一台即时显影照相机。
1991年是宝丽莱的发展高峰期。当年由即时显影照相机和胶卷主导的销售额将近30亿美元。
但是它在数码摄影潮流下无以为继，到2001年宣告破产，四年后由明尼苏达州企业派特斯全球集团买下。
宝丽莱公司表示，目前的胶卷库存可以供应到2009年，他们希望向别的公司出售生产专利权，好让仍在使用宝丽莱照相机的支持者能继续得到胶卷供应。

感觉撑的时间也够久的了，因为即拍即现是数码最大的优势。这是否也说明数码相机在专业摄影师中的应用越来越广泛了？

<<Polaroid closing instant film factories>>
<<Polaroid quits instant film>>

Polaroid Corp is dropping the technology it pioneered long before digital photography rendered instant film obsolete to all but a few nostalgia buffs.

Polaroid is closing factories in Massachusetts, Mexico and the Netherlands and cutting 450 jobs as the brand synonymous with instant images focuses on ventures such as a portable printer for images from cell phones and Polaroid-branded digital cameras, televisions and DVD players.

This year's closures will leave Polaroid with 150 employees at its Concord headquarters and a site in the nearby Boston suburb of Waltham, down from peak global employment of nearly 21,000 in 1978.

The company stopped making instant cameras over the past two years.

"We're trying to reinvent Polaroid so it lives on for the next 30 to 40 years," Tom Beaudoin, Polaroid's president, chief operating officer and chief financial officer, said in a phone interview Friday, after the company's plans were reported in The Boston Globe.

Polaroid failed to embrace the digital technology that has transformed photography, instead sticking to its belief that many photographers who didn't want to wait to get pictures developed would hold onto their old Polaroid cameras.

Global sales of traditional camera film have been dropping about 25 per cent to 30 per cent per year, "and I've got to believe instant film has been falling as fast if not faster," said Ed Lee, a digital photography analyst at the research firm InfoTrends Inc.

"At some point in time, it had to reach the point where it was going to be uneconomical to keep producing instant film," Lee said.

Privately held Polaroid doesn't disclose financial details about its instant film business.

Polaroid instant film will be available in stores through next year, the company said - after which, Lee said, Japan's Fujifilm will be the only major maker of instant film.

Polaroid got its start making polarised sunglasses in the 1930s, and introduced its first instant camera in 1948. Film packs contained the chemicals for developing images inside the camera, and photos emerged from the camera in less than a minute.

Polaroid's overall revenue from instant cameras, film and other products peaked in 1991 at nearly $US3 billion ($A3.36 billion). The company went into bankruptcy in 2001 and was bought four years later for $US426 million ($A477.61 million) by Minnetonka, Minneapolis-based consumer products company Petters Group Worldwide.

Polaroid's newly announced job cuts include 150 positions to be eliminated over the next couple months at Massachusetts operations in Norwood and Waltham, which make large-format films for technical and industrial photography. Later this year, Polaroid will close plants employing 300 workers in the Mexican state of Queretaro and in Enschede, Netherlands.

Meanwhile, Polaroid is seeking a partner to acquire licensing rights for its instant film, in hopes that another firm will continue making the film to supply Polaroid enthusiasts.

As it seeks to gain a foothold in digital photography this year, Polaroid plans to sell an 8-ounce photo printer slightly bigger than a deck of cards that requires no ink and prints business card-sized pictures. It uses thermal printing technology from Zink Imaging Inc., founded by private investors who bought technologies from Polaroid as it was coming out of bankruptcy.

Polaroid also has its brand name on foreign-made TVs, DVD players, digital photo frames, cameras and MP3 music players. Those products generated nearly $US1 billion ($A1.12 billion) in revenue last year for Polaroid's parent firm, Beaudoin said.