Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • 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 going broke?

(...) Kodak said on Friday that it had no immediate plans for bankruptcy: “As we sit here today, Kodak has no intention of filing for bankruptcy,” Kodak spokesperson Gerard K. Meuchner told DealBook. “There has been no change in our strategy to monetize our intellectual property.”

In a statement, the company said, “It is not unusual for a company in transformation to explore all options and to engage a variety of outside advisers, including financial and legal advisers. Jones Day is one of a number of advisers that Kodak is working with in that regard.” (...)
Click to expand...

Printers are not the solution. Digital, to remain digital, is the future. Kodak should have focused on making digital cameras, screens, etc.
 
Kodak has been in the toilet for years. No news there. They sold re-branded Asian junk as their consumer digital camera line and failed to keep up with the competition's standard features until recently.
 
I grew up in Rochester, NY when I was a little kid. The city really took a turn for the worst in the mid to late '90s when digital was becoming the new thing.

Since then, Rochester is a dump. 90% of Kodak's factory is shutdown (it's a ghost town), thousands of employees have been laid off and the ghetto part of the city has been growing substantially because of the unemployment rate.

Kodak should have looked at the market and took action. They're late in the game, and even though they have many patents for imaging sensors, they can't expect to live off leasing the patents, technology, and printer sales for the rest of their existence. They need something new.
 
On the positive note there is at least one company that I can think of that may just fill in the gap...
 
Kodak has no vision. An ironic statement, I know. But its true. They have a big fat market staring them in the face: Digital Media Archiving technologies. Its desperately needed. Its guaranteed to grow exponentially. And its guaranteed to be recession proof. They are sitting on the technology like a chimpanzee playing with a loaded gun- blissfully unaware of the power they need only reach out and grab. Let's see what they can do with it...

Kodak needs to forget about what it was and concentrate on what its going to be. But, like most publicly traded corporations, eventually the management stops making the core product and starts thinking the stock price is the product. Tech is filled with this thinking. Engineers, Developers and Designers get pink slips and Accountants get bonuses-- death inevitably follows of one kind or other. Innovation requires a maverick risk-taker that bends the organization to their will. If Kodak gets one of them to run the show, could be fantastic... for all of us.
 
So sad ... they are one of the biggest innovators in imaging, but since a while rarely translate them into successful products.
Heck, they invented digital sensors, the Bayer pattern and OLED displays.
 
Kodak made a HUGE error in deciding to attempt to survive the coming digital revolution (entering the graveyard of consumer electronics!) rather than simply reduce the company's size in tandem with its decline in sales. This approach would have resulted in the company the returning huge sums cash to their shareholders. That money would then have been reinvested in next Kodak. As it is, billions of dollars were squandered in an utterly futile attempt to avoid the inevitable. On the bright side, I use the example of Kodak in my advanced financial economics classes as exactly how a company should never play the "end" game.

There will always be film just as there are still saddle makers. They just won't make very much of it.

Stephen
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
Kodak made a HUGE error in deciding to attempt to survive the coming digital revolution (entering the graveyard of consumer electronics!) rather than simply reduce the company's size in tandem with its decline in sales. This approach would have resulted in the company the returning huge sums cash to their shareholders. That money would then have been reinvested in next Kodak. As it is, billions of dollars were squandered in an utterly futile attempt to avoid the inevitable. On the bright side, I use the example of Kodak in my advanced financial economics classes as exactly how a company should never play the "end" game.

There will always be film just as there are still saddle makers. They just won't make very much of it.

Stephen
Click to expand...

That's all well and good to say from the outside, but speaking as one who has closed down a company, it is not at all easy to fire employees (or "reduce the size" as you call it) who have given years of service. At least not if you have considered them anything more than chattel.
 
Stephen Pruitt said:
There will always be film just as there are still saddle makers.
Click to expand...
Saddle makers will be around only as long as there are horses. Who would plan on shooting a feature on film now? How long will it be until no one will develop movie film? Funny that the last demand for film will be to make prints from video.
 
Jeff Coatney said:
Kodak has no vision. An ironic statement, I know. But its true. They have a big fat market staring them in the face: Digital Media Archiving technologies. Its desperately needed. Its guaranteed to grow exponentially. And its guaranteed to be recession proof. They are sitting on the technology like a chimpanzee playing with a loaded gun- blissfully unaware of the power they need only reach out and grab. Let's see what they can do with it...

Kodak needs to forget about what it was and concentrate on what its going to be. But, like most publicly traded corporations, eventually the management stops making the core product and starts thinking the stock price is the product. Tech is filled with this thinking. Engineers, Developers and Designers get pink slips and Accountants get bonuses-- death inevitably follows of one kind or other. Innovation requires a maverick risk-taker that bends the organization to their will. If Kodak gets one of them to run the show, could be fantastic... for all of us.
Click to expand...
For some reason, I never even thought of this. What a huge opportunity this would be for Kodak. Not only is this industry looking for long term archiving storage for digital image data, but I'm sure many other industries that need reliable long term data storage as well. As a society we are racking up an enormous amount of data. Some of it needs to be stored long term. Kodak could have been on the forefront of this. If they did in fact see the writing on the wall that digital would eventually take over film, then it would have been a great time to embrace it and be the leader in data storage. Maybe it's not too late. Someone needs to step up and come up with a great solution, why not a company that already has some amazing archival formats.
 
It's tragic. I grew up with EPR 64 (I was too young and missed the whole thing about Kodachrome 64) and it was the beauty & fashion photographers film of choice. It breed great knowledge of your craft because if you were out of step with your exposure by more than a 1/3 of a stop you had missed (even with the ability to push/pull) the 'button'. While I love the advent of digital it has destroyed any element of learning a craft and has developed a belief that with digital, when in doubt or a failure at the shooting stage then it 'will just be sorted in post'. As i said - tragic.
 
They sold the last few rolls of Kodachrome to Steve McCurry and he went on a round the world tour for Nat Geo with it.

As Paul Simon sang:

They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's
a sunny day
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away
 
Having grown up with Eastman. Still, super 8, 16mm and then 30 features and countless commercials and music videos I cannot convey how much Kodak has meant to me.
You all can criticize their lack of future thinking but man, they are responsible for so much of the magic of cinema. We all die but how many leave such a mark.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top