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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Kodak files for bankruptcy

This never had to happen... Kodak will always be an icon. It very well could have participated, even led the way on a number of digital age products.
 
Roberto Lequeux said:
This never had to happen... Kodak will always be an icon. It very well could have participated, even led the way on a number of digital age products.
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I agree. But even if it focused on film it still could be doing very well. Film still sells, RED or no RED. :-)

One thing that some people have been calling for is an inexpensive, high-resolution scanner. It's so aggravating to not have a lab near my home which does decent scans (I'm talking 24Mpx, 16-bit TIFFs). I'd rather buy a scanner and do it my damned self! Except that we need a head-kicking scanner at $500 that does 35mm and MF. And despite the obvious need for scanners... they want to make money on fucking ink-jet printers?!?!
 
KODAK

That name reflects a part of my childhood and a lot of memories. The smell of film when you open the can is one.

This might be a story of how "sticking to what you do" can hurt you OR It could be a story of "not willing to change" can hurt you. I think KODAK has a bit of "founders syndrome" where the company was resting a bit to much on brand awareness and loyalty rather than move with "the rest of the world".

No one is infallible. Things last a long time because there is willingness to make them last a long time.

I hope Jim in Rochester buying up the best patents. At least, in some way, it would not have all been for nothing.

David
 
Karim D. Ghantous said:
I agree. But even if it focused on film it still could be doing very well. Film still sells, RED or no RED. :-)
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Just to be clear, I don't think of RED at all when I think of Kodak's demise. I think of horrible management.

And film would die even with inexpensive film scanners. Kids are now born into digital, and they are experiencing their first comedy, first zombie flick, first what-have-you largely shot with digital cameras. The future is digital, and largely here already. So Kodak needed to focus on digital image acquisition and or display to stay in the imaging business.

I completely agree about the printers...

It is sad. Kids won't even know what 'a Kodak' is, but us 'old farts' ;) will miss it.
 
Karim D. Ghantous said:
...they want to make money on fucking ink-jet printers?!?!
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Maybe because CEO Antonio M. Perez has a background at HP...but even though Kodak was a pioneer of digital
cameras ultimately they were unwilling to cannibalize their film sales by following through on
their early digital development and research. Ultimately how can you survive when you lose your main
product and there is not really anything to take it's place. Consumer digital cameras/printers is very competitive
and would not provide sufficient funds anywhere close to sustain Kodak's large number of employees.
 
My feeling is that Kodak will become the definitive example of a once dominant company's failure to move with the times. Sad really.
 
Cam Crowley said:
My feeling is that Kodak will become the definitive example of a once dominant company's failure to move with the times. Sad really.
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It's the story of humanity. Applies for smallest of organizations (or even individuals for that matter) to the largest of civilizations and everything in between.
 
Kodak's failure has nothing to do with "Not moving with the times" a look on their website reveals they have numerous digital camera solutions for consumers, Kodaks failure was more likely the result of poor management, perhaps a lack of focus.
 
Karim D. Ghantous said:
they want to make money on fucking ink-jet printers?!?!
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why not? That's actually a field where I think they have some expertise... maybe not so much on printers for like Office-use but when it comes to photo-printing, photo-paper and especially the field of larger-scale prints (plots & stuff) I think they could find a niche where's still some place for them. I'm sure they can deliver good quality on the more professional segments on the market there... of corse they still have to strip down on markets where they completely lost competition in the meantime.

...but I'm not an expert on this. Will probably hit other companies also soon - even the big ones often can't keep pace with the fast-lived (digital) world. You've seen that before with eg. Sony & the iPod, you definitely see it with Nokia and Smartphones and so on.
 
All is a bit sad, confusing and probably somebody waiting behind to buy it when the price drops at the lowest level,...

Also in this case a high-end Leica's digital camera production future it looks somehow uncertain just because Leica M9 5270 x 3516 pixels (18.5 megapixel) CCD chip

and Leica S exclusive MAESTRO image processor both are made in Kodak Image Sensor Solutions Business located in Rochester, New York.

1925-George-Eastman-takin-012.jpg

1925: George Eastman taking pictures with a Kodak camera

The-first-Kodak-camera-ca-005.jpg

Early The Kodak Camera ad.

1900-An-advertisement-for-004.jpg

Early Kodak Girl ad.

July-1929-George-Eastman--017.jpg

July 1929: George Eastman, founder of the Eastman Kodak Company and Thomas Edison at Eastman House, Rochester, New York.
Their experiments together made motion pictures possible

Source>>>

kodak_last.jpg

Today's Kodak new ad: It's could be a former Kodak or now probably Eastman Chemical advertising at the back cover page of the latest issue

American Cinematographer Magazine February 2012.
 
I remember their 14 megapixel DSLR from about 2004/2005. Can't remember what it was called but it wasn't cheap. Compared to the Canon it was a piece of shit. As such it died a pretty quick death.

Poor management for sure. Poor management that failed to change - why is that such a stretch? Look at their patients they've been trying to flog for the last few years - next to worthless when you compare what (not that long ago) the company was worth and their dominance of a marketplace. Kodak's stockmarket value is what - a little over $100mill now? If that is not a failure to change I don't know what is. But hey - feel free to debate.
 
Cam Crowley said:
I remember their 14 megapixel DSLR from about 2004/2005. Can't remember what it was called but it wasn't cheap. Compared to the Canon it was a piece of shit. As such it died a pretty quick death.

Poor management for sure. Poor management that failed to change - why is that such a stretch? Look at their patients they've been trying to flog for the last few years - next to worthless when you compare what (not that long ago) the company was worth and their dominance of a marketplace. Kodak's stockmarket value is what - a little over $100mill now? If that is not a failure to change I don't know what is. But hey - feel free to debate.
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I second that. Poor management. Huge egos can destroy huge corporations.

Hunday and Kia are good examples of success. They listened to people and realized they had design issues with their cars and hired the Audi and BMW design gurus, they quickly solved their design problem and are who they are now.

I don't think Kodak's high ups listened to what people were saying and if they did, they did not have the right professionals, from the marketing people to the tech guys.
 
Well Fuji Corp certainly didn't do so badly. In fact it's doing pretty well after it absorbed it's fujifilm division 6 or so years ago. Something Kodak should have done instead of trying it a couple of weeks ago or whenever it was, well after the horse bolted.

I'm not in anyway gleeful about this - I think it's really sad that Kodak is about to go bye bye. But the writing was on the wall for them a long time ago (about 15 years in reality) - look at the design, music, photog industries, all completely dominated by digital, and its subsequent casualties and success stories. Why they didn't learn from the music industry example alone completely bamboozles me.

IMHO they made some big mistakes in the whole pricing of their stuff when all things digital happened. Stuff like their media and cameras were always pretty high price and of no discernibly better quality - and in some cases inferior. I hate to think how much I was blowing on blank Kodak CDs in my student days when they first came out. It was like 30 fucking bucks a pop and the fail rate was quite high. What do you think I did as soon as the cheaper alternatives popped up in the market place? Kodak pretty much had the highest price media the whole time. The only real added value was a supposedly trusted brand that in reality was a sinking ship.

Shit management or whatever. I don't know - I guess we'll find out after they start picking through the pieces.
 
I think in Kodak case like in many other it's a leadership matter or a lack of appropriate leadership.

LEADER >>> A person or thing that leads.

SHIP >>> Since the end of the age of sail a ship has been any large buoyant marine vessel.

You can have a great technology, a bunch of good ideas but wrong leadership can drive you sooner or later in a disaster or catastrophy.

The latest example is a luxury cruise liner, the Costa Concordia, ran aground off the coast of Tuscany, killing at least 11 people,...

Grazie, Capitano >>>

Costa Concordia's route - interactive>>>

Costa-Concordia-cruise-sh-004.jpg


Damaged-hull-of-the-Costa-007.jpg

Almost the same like in Homer's Odyssey with Odysseus in Scylla and Charybdis:
The damaged hull of the cruise ship because the ship's captain Francesco Schettino failed to spot oncoming the rocks on Giglio.

Rescuers-stand-in-a-boat--001.jpg


Source>>>
 
Really hope Kodak recovers. I think there's a place for both Film and Digital in today's filmmaking world.

I agree with the view that Kodak 'lost direction' and suffered from poor leadership. Instead of spending all their energy launching patent lawsuits left and right, they should have rolled up their sleeves and channeled all their resources into creating new/innovative products.

Will be a sad day indeed when Kodak officially shuts its doors for good.
 
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