From the New York Times, “A Kodak spokesman said that Mr. [Anthony M.] Perez [CEO of Kodak] had pursued inkjet printers because the company had ‘a treasure trove’ of inkjet technology in its research and development unit and that the business was ‘well positioned for ongoing success.’”
On the other hand, the CEO came from HP, so perhaps he was going with what he knew. And the idea was that they weren’t going to charge as much for the print cartridges as the established players, so there was some sense in the idea.
As I say, Kodak is following the Polaroid scenario…just 10+ years later.
How come this lesson wasn’t learned?
BTW-at $0.47/share, is Kodak a steal? I can imagine the book vale of the real estate they own, is probably wildly ndervalued-if they bought a building in 1970, it is probabably worth a lot more today.
I loved the idea of their affordable-ink inkjets - except for the fact that both of the ones I purchased jammed repeatedly and I never got good printouts from them.
Not as absurd as some of the other things they tried at Kodak to diversify. From the Wall Street Journal, “Casting about for alternatives to its lucrative but shrinking film business, Kodak toyed with chemicals, bathroom cleaners and medical-testing devices in the 1980s and 1990s, before deciding to focus on consumer and commercial printers in the past half-decade under Chief Executive Antonio Perez.” The article also mentions that one of the things weighing down the company are its promised retiree pensions and health care benefits (although they could lose those liabilities in a bankruptcy filing).
In 1990, the hospital lab where I worked bought a new chemistry analyzer called the Ektachem, made by Kodak. It was pretty innovative at the time for utilizing what was called dry slide chemistry - no bulk liquid reagents to deal with. The reagent slides came in rectangular black plastic cartridges. I liked it a lot, easy to run for the most part and fast. Kodak sold the line off to Johnson & Johnson some years later. When I left that lab in 2006 they had just gotten two of the latest model.
I use Ektar 100 in my 35mm film cameras and in my 120 Bronica SQ. I love Ektar, it is the best negative film there is. (Fuji Velvia 50 is the best slide film.) I use digital cameras too, but I really prefer film for artistic work.
Digital is “better”? Really? OK then, show me a digital camera that has a full frame sensor and a full frame viewfinder that doesn’t cost thousands of dollars. Show me a digital camera that provides the equivalent of a 6x4.5 negative (to say nothing of the larger medium formats or - gasp - large format) that doesn’t cost as much as a new car. You can’t do it, because they don’t exist.
Don’t worry about that. Kodak hasn’t been the biggest employer in town for a while now. Others have picked up the slack and Rochester weathered the great recession better than most.
But 99.9% of shooters don’t need any of that. They’ll continue to use digital and the prices will continue to drop. Heck, in most people’s hands an entry level DSLR will produce better (subjective, for sure) shots than a film DSLR. Image quality is, for all practical purposes, equivalent and digital allows users more control, more versatility, and much better price/performance when you look at the number of shots taken. That doesn’t even count preview, video, sound, HDR, and digital effects.
Clinging to film is like the God of the Gaps. Every day the tiny sliver where film is a benefit is growing smaller and smaller.
I bought a digital SLR for $599 and it produces spectacular pictures of jaw-dropping quality without the bother of film. For substantially less I can get a little pocket camera that doesn’t produce pictures nearly as nice as the SLR does, but they’re more than good enough for most purposes. Digital FTW.
Ironically, George Eastman made Kodak the giant it was because he understood this. He understood that was people needed was not the complex, but the simple; something where you press a button and you get a picture, and his job was to keep making the product better while keeping it accessible. (Eastman was a much greater figure in business innovation than Steve Jobs, IMHO.)
And as professionals overwhelmingly prefer to work in digital as well, it seems the matter is decided.
If it’s true that Kodak owns many patents on large-format digital sensors, I don’t see why they’re not trying to capitalize on that to pull themselves out of the red. Sell affordable digital backs for view cameras and medium-format SLRs, or even make a digital SLR with a 6x7 sensor.
Back in the day, people would ask newcomers “Kodak or Xerox”? The former #3 employer, the University of Rochester, is now #1. (It sold all of the Kodak and Xerox stocks that made its endowment so big a long time ago.) Yeah, the town is going away.
Kodak going into the medical testing/supply business was smart. It needed to think of itself as a chemical company and everything health related has been expanding for years. So selling that off is viewed as mega-dumb by more than a few people.
(You see this a lot. The execs need to bring in some money, so they sell off a division that others see as actually worth something. Money comes in, stocks go up. Do it a couple times and bankruptcy ensues. Barnes & Noble is looking for a buyer for their Nook division. That’s the “Amazon Wins” signal.)
Bausch and Lomb is limping along okay. Thank God for contacts. It’s surprising how with all the digital cameras and such it isn’t a bigger player in the new tech stuff. You have to wonder how big it could have become if it had been smarter.
Note that there are various reasons why people buy stocks for pennies in a company nearing bankruptcy. E.g., to cover a short sale and such. Which is why the stock isn’t basically 0. But never, ever do it as a straight investment.
They are trying to do that. The only question is whether or not they have enough capital to stay afloat long enough to sell the patents or if they’ll have to declare bankruptcy first.
The town is not going away. The question just changed to “Wegmans or U of R?”
Yes but patents alone don’t make for a successful business making digital cameras. You need expertise in optics and electronics. And it’s an industry with many established players.
Yes, digital is better. My friend who is a commercial and artistic photographer does a ton of product photography - wine, food, jewelry - and he’s been digital-only for years. I set him up with his studio shooting system years ago, shooting to a Mac Mini via FireWire so the clients can see his composition on a 55" HD screen. He loves it and doesn’t have them breathing down his neck. You have a film camera with a 55" viewfinder?
Film allows you to have superior image quality without the high up-front cost. It may ultimately cost more over time (the film and developing costs) but it’s still much more accessible to the average person than digital photography of the same image quality.
Are Kodak’s digital cameras crap? Or did they just fail to make it in the new “does-it-all” device age we live in, where people use their smart phones to take pictures, too?
