An Engineer

Wirelessly integrated digital cameras are inevitable. As we look into our collective crystal ball, we certainly don’t see our grandkids tethering their cameras to computers to upload the images. Instead, consumers will take photos with their cameras and the photos will float up to the grid wirelessly in the background. At first, we will see integration with private wireless networks, like WiFi, and eventually with public networks like EVDO from Verizon.

Wireless integration poses a significant challenge to photo retailers. For a retailer to be in a position to print a photo for a consumer the retailer must have access to the image data. Hence, the consumer must register the retailer as the wireless endpoint in the camera configuration screen or the retailer must have a relationship with an online photo service that is a configurable endpoint in the camera.

Today, the major online photo services (Kodak, Shutterfly, Snapfish) are themselves in the printing business and hence may be reluctant to allow retail to print images. Even if a retailer can strike a deal, it is not likely to be favorable to the retailer since the online service offers a competitive printing product.

The other possibility is that the consumer can configure their camera to push images directly to the retailer. But today, no standard exists for moving images wirelessly from camera to service and the retailers have little experience running online services.

Kodak and HP, both major camera manufacturers, own online photo services now and presumably their cameras will favor those services as endpoints. The other camera manufacturers, including leaders Canon and Nikon are not yet aligned with a consumer online service. It falls to them to lead the industry through an introduction of a standard for transfer of images to online services.

For the consumer, the best possible outcome is that a competitive ecosystem of online providers emerges, providing choice and efficient pricing. A consumer would configure his camera to send images to the online service of his choice and from there could share the images and order other related products such as prints and gifts from a variety of online and brick-and-mortar providers.

Canon and Nikon too would be best served by the existence of a diverse ecosystem. The worst possible outcome from their standpoint is that HP/Snapfish and Kodak/Ofoto dominate the landscape, and that they are forced to compete in camera manufacturing on an uneven playing field against companies that can design their cameras to work better with the dominant services.

The bottom line is that retail needs to either forge relationships with online photo services or becomes online services themselves. Pure-play sharing and archiving services such as Phanfare are attractive partners to retail. Since Phanfare derives its primary revenue through subscription and guarantees consumers choice of where to print we are complementary rather than competitive with the retail channel.