Kodak on the brink

[Deleted]

So sad

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203471004577140841495542810.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories


Wayne

[mickeyobe]

Jan 4, 2012 23:13:18 GMT -5 @wayne said:

So sad

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203471004577140841495542810.html?mod=WSJ_h_LEFTTopStories
Wayne

It's all my fault.
I bought a Kodak printer. A Kodak ESP C130 to be exact.

Tiring of my present printer/scanner/faxer/toaster/dishwasher/lawn mower's complexities and above all its back breaking costs of ink I went out last week and bought a new Kodak printer with ink for less than half the price of ink for my xxxxxxxx. $39.95 to be exact. Its ink is far, far, far cheaper than any on the market as is its paper. Both are excellent products.

It took me about 20 minutes to get it up and running as opposed to hours spent on xxxxxxx. It is amazingly easy to use compared to xxxxxxx. It produces beautiful colour prints and black and white copy in about 1/4 or less the time of brand xxxxxxx.

The longevity of its prints, according to all I have read and heard is superior to most similar products on the market.

It is light weight, compact, quiet and does not cause my desk to rock and roll when it prints.

A company that can produce this deserves to survive although there are 130 years and thousands of other good reasons why.



I wish Kodak good fortune.

Vive Kodak.


Mickey

[Deleted]

Obviously Kodak has been hurt by the shift from film to digital photography. In addition to film, Kodak was a major manufacturer of film cameras. But one thing that has really hurt Kodak is changes in the publishing industry. It was the major supplier of film and chemicals for newspapers and other printers--a huge market. Now most printing goes directly from computer to plate.

A classic example of a company being so large and entrenched in a specific area that it can't respond to changes in the market.

[Doug T.]

It's very sad indeed, that a company like Kodak has to file for Chap.11 protection.
We can always hope that they'll come out of this re-focused and stronger.

Doug

[nikonbob]

Well not that you could not have seen this coming. The NYSE served notice that they would delist Kodak a while back if they could not get their share price over the 1 dollar mark. Kodak may survive Chapter 11, the company I worked for did after about a year of restructuring. Mind you the work environment there is now poisonous because of the effects of restructuring from what I can gather. Everyone is going to suffer, it is just a matter of degrees I am afraid. It is a pity for a whole lot of reasons.

Bob

[Doug T.]

It's pretty much the same thing that happened to Ansco/GAF here in Binghamton.
Everyone lost their jobs
The real pity is that they make such good products.

Doug

[Berndt]

Sad news From my opinon, Kodak has put too less effort into the film sector. There has been tough times, when Agfa went bancrupt as well and everybody switched to digital, but after that, new companies like lomography has been rising and they are still growing.

Why ? Because they came up with "new" ( or old ? ) concepts, making film photography look sexy again for the young generation. Toy cameras, exhibitions and competitions in cooperation with the fashion and design industry. An excellent designed homepage, supporting a community of film- and lomo-loving people ... and an image change. Film has been a "common tool" for daily life photographers for decades and now, it got the image of something more "indy" or "art" like.

Basically everything is just about marketing and advertisement ... and that's where Kodak failed. I owned a Kodak digital camera myself and it hasn't been a bad one ... but the name Kodak stands for film. That's what they have been famous for, that's what they have been strong at ... and that's, what they should have concentrated on. Rolex is also still manufacturing analog watches and surviving with that ... even digital watches are common now for decades.

Anyway ... sad news

[mickeyobe]

berndt,

Flogging a dead horse which is what you would, with film, have had Kodak do has never proven capable of making it get up and trot again.

Kodak has been the king for decades and justifiably so. But dynasties always come to an end.

Kodak has made a valiant effort to get back in the running but, I fear, it may be too late. I sincerely hope I am wrong.

I think Kodak deserves better.

Mickey

[Berndt]

Flogging a dead horse which is what you would, with film, have had Kodak do has never proven capable of making it get up and trot again.

I think, it is never about what you are selling, just how. As stated, lomography is doing a much better job with that and they are growing. Releasing new types of films and (film!)cameras every year, opening new shops everywhere ( just last year here in Tokyo as well ). So why is Kodak suffering ?

I could spontaneously tell 20 good reasons for using film as well as for using digital cameras. One can do things, the other can't ... and people start noticing that. But ... what I always say, it has been the digital world, that actually helped saving film from dying. Without good scanners, without the internet as a platform for communication and advertisement, film would be long dead.

The reason, why I always mention the lomography guys is, because they did exactly, what Kodak should have done. They are promoting an "analog lifestyle", paradoxically by using the internet as their most powerful tool though I mean, just look at the homepages of both companies:
www.lomography.com/
www.kodak.com/ek/US/en/Home.htm
Which does look more sexy or exciting ... or providing more information, support, etc. ?

I think, those lomography guys have been truly smart. They built up a community, naming their films with fashionable names like "Earl Grey" and spreading the word with pictures, people take with their cameras.

We veterans might smile about all that a little bit, because we grew up with film and know, that all these things are not really new ... but that's not the point. The whole thing is about sales and marketing. If people are not speaking the language of the new generation anymore ... yes ... than, the dynasty dies. But I think, it is not the horse, which became old, it has been the jockey

The name Kodak might die. I also don't think, that there will be chance for them to turn everything around ... very unfortunately. What might happen is the same thing, what happened to Agfa. A few motivated and inspired people from the company, bought all the machines from the bankrupt's assets ... and producing film again ( under a different name though ). And their products sell well. It has been just, that Agfa has been too big to survive the tough times of film as a company.

So, there is still a chance, that we can buy a good Portra or E100VS in the future ... but under different label. Maybe something like "vintage rainbow" or "Bluefire Murano". The Kodak Portra gets already sold, using this name by a canadian company.

[Deleted]

Sorry. Can't agree. Lomography isn't a sign of rebirth of film IMO. It's a fad and the number of people involved isn't great enough to keep any film manufacturer in business.

A few years ago I, too, would have argued that it would be a long time before film was out of the picture but that simply isn't the case. In five years it will be difficult to find film or a place to process it. People using film will be about as plentiful as people still playing analog vinyl records.

Someone will probably make film for a niche market (like film camera collectors) but mainstream film is all but dead. Sorry for being so negative but the king is dead and no amount of wishing is going to change that.

Note: That doesn't mean I'm not going to collect film cameras. I don't collect they to necessarily shoot them. I collect them because I love the mechanical engineering that is involved.

W.

[nikonbob]

I can only agree, sadly, with what Wayne has said. Lomography users probably account for less than 1% of the volume of film consumed a decade ago by the general consumer. Add to that the fact that no new movie film cameras are being made and you have a recipe for disaster. I think the machines Kodak has for film production are geared to output the volume necessary to supply the movie industry and consumer film was piggybacked on to that. With the volume all but gone on the consumer end and the likely hood of a vastly shrunken movie film market, the machines will become uneconomical to run. Those machines were made to run on a continuous basis and cannot be run economically in fits and starts.

If the availability of Kodak film disappears then that is a minor tragedy compared to what will happen to the employees and pensioners. Under Chapter 11 employees and pensioners are unsecured creditors and will get a percentage of what is left after the secured creditors get their share. Conceivably 100% of nothing is still nothing. The pension fund itself is grossly under funded and retirees could see there pensions drastically reduced to the point of being a joke. This would be a far greater tragedy than losing a film stock. Other manufacturers are still selling film.

Bob

[Deleted]

Excellent point, Bob

[Berndt]

Yes Bob and Wayne ... you might be right ... even I wouldn't wish so.

And it might not only be about film. The digital photo industry might also see it's doomsday soon, because the camera market is quite saturated. If people are not camera collectors, they might buy a digital camera every five years and those became already so good, that there are only minor improvements from one model to the next. And there are no follow-up costs. Nobody needs to buy film, get it developed, etc. ... that's actually a tremendous loss ... not for us end users but for the industry.

Plus the cellphones. Assuming that most of all camera users in the past have been actually just snapshooters, a photo-/video capable cellphone would be a satisfying tool for them ... and that's what I aready notice everywhere. At weddings, parties or seasonable photo spots, where usually thousands of people come together for taking pictures of the cherryblossom here in Tokyo or whatever ... most people are using a cellphone nowadays. The very few people, more seriously interested in photography are sharing classic DSLRs and film cameras, which I think, can be seen more recently and especially in the hands of younger people ... but that's more some kind of fashion, I guess ... and of course a minority, comparing to all camera/cellphone users.

So ... all the poor Kodak employeers might knock on Apples door and build iPhones instead of developing film. But what if finally everybody owns a smartphone ? Kodak could feed families for more than hundred years, but we are living in fast times now

[nikonbob]

Believe me I don't wish to be right about Kodak. Chapter 11 does not necessarily mean that they will disappear, if they can restructure they may survive in some form. You can only hope so. The company I worked for almost my entire life went into Chapter 11 just before I retired. It took a year for them to restructure and come out of Chapter 11, so it can be done. Even so there was still a lot of human carnage albeit less than in total bankruptcy.

Berndt

You make some good points also. Even in the film only days the average consumer would not have been buying a new camera continuously. Even for the serious amateur today digital has reached a point where you are not compelled to constantly buy each new succeeding model. The improvements in the new models are no longer huge leaps over the previous one so the life cycle of a camera is approaching what it was in the film days. I can see that cellphones can and are replacing using a camera to take photos at the consumer level. One constant through all the change is still the human need to actually take photos no matter how it is done.

The hard part in this fast changing world is suffered by employees, especially the older ones, who have been made redundant due to there type of work being redundant. You don't have a skill set that anyone wants anymore so you just can't find new employment and if you can it will be far less rewarding financially. Sometimes I wish I had a pair of rose coloured glasses to view the world through.

Bob