Kodak Files For Bankruptcy Protection

Snirt writes "Following up on a story previously discussed here, it now appears Eastman Kodak, the company that invented the hand-held camera, has filed for bankruptcy protection. The move, according to Kodak's news release, gives the company time to reorganize itself without facing its creditors, and Kodak said it would mean business as normal for customers. The company has recently moved away from cameras, focusing on making printers to stem falling profits."

Comments

Kodak's Moment

[xmas2003]

Sad to see ... but they've been living off patents and selling assets the last couple of years ... so not surprising they ran outa $$$

Re:Kodak's Moment

[Lev13than]

Kodak's demise is a cautionary tale for anyone who owns Apple stock. The two companies have a lot in common - at one point Kodak's products were in every house in the developed world. Kodak owned entire categories of consumer devices and were heavily used by the creative classes. Kodak had the additional advantage of being entrenched in a number of huge industries, including news, media, Hollywood and hospitals. In short, they were seen as indispensable and their earnings reflected this reality.

Fast forward 30 years and they completely failed to re-invent themselves, which is mandatory for consumer products companies. Sony has its own issues, but at least they aren't trying to make a go of Walkmans any more. Apple is approaching a similar inflection point, and their need to innovate goes well beyond a slightly larger, slightly faster iPhone.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[MightyYar]

Kodak didn't die because they stopped innovating... they died because they removed themselves from the camera-making business. Then, when it became clear that people wanted digital, they had no expertise or market presence in cameras. Why would someone buy a Kodak camera when they could buy a Nikon or Canon, or even a Pentax or Vivitar... anyone who had been making cameras already.

Apple is at the complete opposite side of things - they are a hardware company first and foremost. If the smart phone market goes away, along with the tablet and PC markets, then yeah Apple is screwed. If they fail to stay state-of-the-art, then yeah they are screwed. But they are not a big producer of consumables like Kodak was - Kodak is more like Gillette than Apple.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[mcgrew]

I don't see the connection with Apple. Kodak's demise came from the fact that even though they invented the hand hald camera, their film was what made them great, not their cameras. No professional photographer ever used a Kodak camera. You say "were heavily used by the creative classes", I say "citation needed" unless you're referring to the use of their film, which was unequaled. Kodak cameras were cheap consumer products. When film all but became obsolete all they had were patents, they lost the money making part of the business. Heck, consumer-grade cameras themselves are becoming obsolete, since nearly every phone has a megapixel camera built in.

If Kodak works on making the best photo printers, and making them affordable, they have a chance of not dying... now, any way. Everything dies, even companies.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[DriedClexler]

The similarities end there, though. I'm no fanboy, but Apple is constantly adapting to new conditions. When did Kodak, for example, make a leap similar to what did when Apple got into (and soon dominated) the music business?

Re:Kodak's Moment

[Kenshin]

Oh yes, Apple realized this when they needed something more than a slightly faster Mac.

I'm not saying they'll do it again, but they've already been in a similar situation. Or do we forget 1997 so quickly?

Re:Kodak's Moment

[squidflakes]

Kodak invented the digital camera, so it is a bit false to claim that they had no expertise in the field. Where they went wrong was trying to protect their film business by sacrificing their early lead on development and licensing out the technology.

If a longer vision had prevailed at Kodak, people with Nikon and Canon cameras might be wistfully longing that they could afford one of the big boy Kodak cameras.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[flanders123]

How is this +5? Over the past decades Apple has:

-(Re)invented the home computer market
-(Re)invented the digital music market
-(Re)invented the mobile phone market
-(Re)Invented the mobile app market
-(Re)invented the tablet market

Like them or not, equating Apple to a non-innovating dinosaur like Kodak is about the worst analogy I have seen on /, ... and that is saying something.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[iteyoidar]

Kodak invented the digital camera, so it is a bit false to claim that they had no expertise in the field. Where they went wrong was trying to protect their film business by sacrificing their early lead on development and licensing out the technology.

If a longer vision had prevailed at Kodak, people with Nikon and Canon cameras might be wistfully longing that they could afford one of the big boy Kodak cameras.

This quote was the most important part of the article to me, it should have been in the summary:

"Former Kodak vice president Don Strickland insists the firm's late entry into the digital market is a key factor in its recent troubles. He claims he left the company in 1993 after he failed to get backing from within the company to release a digital camera.

'We developed the world's first consumer digital camera and Kodak could have launched it in 1992. We could not get approval to launch or sell it because of fear of the cannibalisation of film,' he told BBC News.

Although Kodak was one of the original inventors of digital photography, it failed to keep pace with developments in the market and competitors including Fuji steadily eroded its share of the market."

I had no idea Kodak had anything going on with digital cameras that far back, I remember the Sonys and Canons and so on and then Kodak eventually came out with some cheap crap-cameras after film was pretty much dead, what a huge business screw-up...

Re:Kodak's Moment

[MightyYar]

Kodak invented the digital camera, so it is a bit false to claim that they had no expertise in the field.

They had (and have!) plenty of experience making CCDs. But they gave up their consumer camera business at least a decade before digital cameras were feasible. Then, when they realized that they needed to make cameras again, they had no manufacturing infrastructure, no experience designing consumer cameras, no experience making consumer lenses.

If a longer vision had prevailed at Kodak, people with Nikon and Canon cameras might be wistfully longing that they could afford one of the big boy Kodak cameras.

It is certainly possible. They could have re-introduced their consumer cameras in the late 80s/early 90s when they were going gangbusters and adopted digital when it became cost effective.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[Lev13than]

In later years their killer device was film, but before that it was film + cameras. Their Brownie camera, for example, kick-starting the consumer photo revolution.

In fact, Kodak's transition from film + camera to film only (with innovations such as Kodak Disc, APS-C demonstrating their ability to develop new markets) is a good example of successful disruptive innovation. Where they failed was the jump from film to digital.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[Chris Mattern]

I had no idea Kodak had anything going on with digital cameras that far back,

Kodak, quite literally, *invented* digital cameras. They could've released them while they still had legitimate patents on all of it. Instead, they became the poster child for the business advice, "If you don't release the better product that cannibalizes what you're selling now, someone else will."

Re:Kodak's Moment

[Lev13than]

And from the 1890s to the 1980s Kodak did the same thing, repeatedly, in the fields of consumer and professional imaging. Think Kodak folding cameras, Brownie cameras, 120 film, 35mm film, Kodachrome. Then they stopped.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[squidflakes]

That really depends on the time period. During the late part of the 19th Century, The Eastman Dry Plate company was the only game in town if you were an American photographer. Yes, the higher quality European cameras were available, but at the price point, you could get an Eastman field camera in 8X10 for a quarter of the price of one of the lower quality Zeiss Anastigmat optics.

When Eastman Kodak brought Folmer & Schwing in to the company they started producing one of the most amazing and ubiquitous press cameras ever made, the Speed Graphic.

So, in the early days, professionals of all stripes used Kodak made cameras. The military in both World Wars relied on Kodak produced cameras and lenses.

You are right that Kodak made most of their money off consumables. That was their business model from the very start, but that doesn't mean they didn't produce some good, even if not quite great, cameras and optics.

Personally, I'm going to miss my Tri-X and hope that someone revives it, a la the Impossible Project.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[flanders123]

Sure this COULD happen to Apple, but I find it unlikely given their track record. The parent seems to imply Apple is near the edge of some non-innovating "inflection point" and offers only conjecture about the next iPhone as evidence.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[morgauxo]

No. They invented the CCD. Yes, that is arguably the most important part of a digital camera but really, if you compare it to a film camera the only part the CCD replaces is the film. That's exactly what Kodak had previously made. Everything else (the optics) was what the other companies already specialized in.

As much as I hate to say it they probably should have been less open with sharing the CCD while at the same time trying harder to develop cameras equivalent to the established competitors.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple have nearly gone out of business before it could happen again.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[DriedClexler]

So Kodak is (was?) like Apple because they had *extensive* innovation within analog film photography? That's like saying, "oh, we diversified into both country *and* western."

Re:Kodak's Moment

[idontgno]

So the fletcher invents the gun and licenses the technology out to the nascent gunsmithing industry, because they're afraid to undercut their brisk trade in arrows. Then the bowmaker starves to death because no one buys arrows for their new guns.

I can't think of any obvious historical precedent, but it seems like I've heard this story before. The market giant invents its own demise and refuses to make the leap. The dinosaur gets nibbled to death by the teeny tiny agile and hungry little mammals.

There is something vaguely Buddhist about this cycle of invention and destruction.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[MightyMartian]

Not a perfect analogy but the Japanese in the 15th and 16th centuries were the largest manufacturer of firearms on the planet, but the Shoguns got so spooked that firearms would destabilize the Japanese form of feudalism that they banned the manufacture, and Japan was literally pushed back a few hundred years. Of course, Admiral Perry came along with his really big guns, and the Japanese quickly realized they had to catch up in a hurry (and thus began probably the most rapid modernization and industrialization project in all of history).

Re:Kodak's Moment

[MightyMartian]

Never assume anything. There will come a time when Apple will become a vast corporate machine like Microsoft and some new upstart will kick the crap out of them. I'm sure Kodak in the 1960s never dreamed that they'd be filing for bankruptcy in half a century.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[pr0fessor]

Apple does make some fine products.
However in the past decade they did not reinvent the home computing market and neither did their competitors which I find sad because I was really hoping someone would.

You did miss one thing that Apples does very well... Brand marketing!

Re:Kodak's Moment

[DerekLyons]

Kodak didn't die because they stopped innovating... they died because they removed themselves from the camera-making business. Then, when it became clear that people wanted digital, they had no expertise or market presence in cameras.

That would be why Kodak was an early entrant into the digital market, with a huge market presence (especially in the professional segment).
 
Seriously, this myth that Kodak is dying because they were late and/or wholly incompetent in the digital market needs to die in a fire. They made a lot of missteps and failed to capitalize on their early lead, which is part of why their dying today, but they were there with the expertise and market presence from very early on.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[DerekLyons]

He's either misremembering or misrepresenting - as Kodak's first digital camera was released in 1991.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[naasking]

Apple is approaching a similar inflection point, and their need to innovate goes well beyond a slightly larger, slightly faster iPhone.

What evidence do you have that Apple is approaching this "inflection point"? In fact, I don't see any parallels between Apple and Kodak at all, that don't equally apply to every other successful company, like Microsoft. Kodak stagnated over a decade ago, and Apple innovation hasn't decreased in pace. Why caution people about Apple specifically and not Microsoft and others?

Re:Kodak's Moment

[Dishevel]

Apples track record is just this....
Without Steve at the helm they die out.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only did Kodak fail to re-invent themselves, they also weren't afraid to actively say "fuck you" to their customers. I remember when Kodak had an Unsatisfactory rating from the Better Business Bureau due to complaints with service and product warranties. Then Kodak told the BBB "fuck you" as well, and simply withdrew from the BBB's accreditation program, resulting in their rating changing to No Rating, with the given reason of "The business is in the process of responding to previously closed complaints."

Complaint breakdown indicates that Kodak actually does still respond to some consumer complaints filed against them with the BBB (despite being unranked), although about 19% of the complaints received no response whatsoever from Kodak.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[Anonymous Coward]

The government forced the company to sell Folmer & Schwing (Graflex) off as part of an anti-trust suit. Kodak still produced the majority of professional lenses for US cameras through to the 1960's. In the 40's Kodak was making the best lenses in the world.

Barred from making professional cameras, Kodak concentrated on what these days we would call the "prosumer" and consumer cameras segments and making lenses for other people. Just about every American combat image from WW2 was made with a "semi professional" Kodak camera issued to the military and if he could afford it (it cost about $2000 in modern money) a GI could ship out with a Kodak Monitor "Prosumer" camera in his pocket that sported a lens that tests show is as good as anything made until the 1960's.

You do wonder if Nikon could have been successful if it was only allowed to make lenses for other people and "point and shoots?"

Re:Kodak's Moment

[frank_adrian314159]

We could not get approval to launch or sell it because of fear of the cannibalisation of film,' he told BBC News.

See Innovator's Dilemma

Re:Kodak's Moment

[Nethead]

You do wonder if Nikon could have been successful if that WW2 GI with a Kodak camera didn't help rebuild Japan after the war.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[sootman]

> 'We developed the world's first consumer digital camera and Kodak could
> have launched it in 1992. We could not get approval to launch or sell it
> because of fear of the cannibalisation of film,' he told BBC News.

I doubt he originated the phrase but I heard Steve Jobs once say (in reference to the iPhone eating into iPod sales) "If you're not willing to cannibalize your own business, someone else will."

Re:Kodak's Moment

[MightyYar]

I don't mean to say that Kodak has a single cause of failure... it's incredibly complicated with many different factors - we're mostly commenting now on a little slice of a post I made countering an assertion that Apple is similar to Kodak. That said:

That would be why Kodak was an early entrant into the digital market, with a huge market presence (especially in the professional segment).

Yes, they did well in the pro market (meaning industrial and medical applications, not professional photographers). But by the time they decided to enter the consumer digital camera market, they had: (a) completely or almost completely lost all capacity to manufacture consumer cameras and (b) lost brand recognition.

They most certainly did not have much in the way to offer professional photographers - all of their DSLRs were converted Canon or Nikon products except for one short-lived model right before they divested the camera division.

It is true that they were pioneers in consumer digital cameras - but that was rather meaningless as they weren't yet practical. Once digital cameras were actually practical, they were cheap and so then bloated Kodak couldn't compete in commodities. Their cameras were not regarded highly enough to command a premium.

They also did try to make those horrid "Advantix" film cameras - but again that was way too late to develop a camera business.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[DerekLyons]

But by the time they decided to enter the consumer digital camera market, they had: (a) completely or almost completely lost all capacity to manufacture consumer cameras and (b) lost brand recognition.

Wrong on both counts, and the first is largely irrelevant anyhow due to the vast differences between film and digital cameras.
 

They most certainly did not have much in the way to offer professional photographers - all of their DSLRs were converted Canon or Nikon products except for one short-lived model right before they divested the camera division.

Yes, professional cameras that none of their competitors could match equates to "nothing to offer". Or, in a shorter version, wrong again.
 

Once digital cameras were actually practical, they were cheap and so then bloated Kodak couldn't compete in commodities.

Wrong again.
 

Their cameras were not regarded highly enough to command a premium.

Since they didn't sell them at a premium, I fail to see your point.
 

I don't mean to say that Kodak has a single cause of failure... it's incredibly complicated with many different factors

Yes, and it's a story you clearly don't understand. You're parroting crap you've read elsewhere in leading you to make the error or believing that being a parrot equates to knowing what you're talking about.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they did make some cameras, but it's a loooooong time ago they made any camera that mattered.
I don't think they produced any important film-camera in the last 30-40 years, neither in professional systems or consumer cameras.
The early dSLR's the made might be the only interesting cameras in recent Kodak history.

 

Re:Kodak's Moment

[walshy007]

No professional photographer ever used a Kodak camera.

My medium format kodak 620a disagrees with you

Sure, it was a different era (50-70 years ago), and canon/nikon didn't even _make_ cameras at the time, but there was a time when kodak meant quality.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[hairyfeet]

I think he's talking about the fact he couldn't get any real backing so all they did was half ass. In a way it reminds me of how MSFT is backed into a corner with x86, because they too were once ahead of the curve with Cutler having Windows on MIPS and SPARC but instead of embracing that portability and developing easy to use IDEs that would make "universal binaries' that would have made them THE OS and software company and would have made the support of ARM when it became the dominant chip trivial none of the PHBs really supported portability and so they went half ass with even their own business software not having a full port (IIRC there was no Access or Excel for anything but x86) so the third parties never ran with it and it dried up and blew away. Now they find themselves a lot like Kodak found themselves at the early 90s, with these upstarts chipping away shares in markets that could have been theirs if they wouldn't have dropped the ball. in the end the only think I think will save MSFT from being Kodak in 20 years is like IBM and the mainframe X86 is a mature market that isn't going anywhere. I believe the x86 desktop/laptop/workstation will stay, it will be a slow growth market with very low turnovers as machines become so powerful they get used for closer to a decade between replacement and like IBM you will see MSFT relegated to that niche that is no longer the hot growth sector.

As for Kodak? There is still money to be made there if someone with vision would come along and save them. I want a Kodachrome camera dammit! I want a digital camera that "lies beautifully" like the old Kodachrome film did, with the extra vibrant greens and blues and white puffy clouds that pop in a picture. if someone were to create a digital camera that gave digital pics that look like Kodachrome and make it say 10MP for $100 i could see those things flying off the shelves. The digital pics just don't look as "alive" as Kodachrome did, for those that haven't ever used it look up some Kodachrome pics and see what i'm talking about, nature shots and outdoor photos (which lets face it most folks are taking pics outside) really had this vibrancy to the colors, especially blue, green, earth tones, and white, that really made the pictures look GOOD. It was damned hard to take a truly shitty looking picture outdoors with Kodachrome. give me THAT and i'll gladly hand you a hundred dollar bill and i bet a lot of other folks would too Kodak.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[MightyYar]

LOL, do you have some personal stake in Kodak? Their consumer and pro-level cameras failed in the marketplace - I did not make this up, this is just what happened. You "fail to see" what the point of not being able to command a premium means? OK, I'll spell it out - it means their margins sucked because their COGS was too high and their selling price too low. They could have improved this somewhat by being a more efficient company, but it sure would have been nice to have some headroom on price. Instead they were undifferentiated in a commodity market.

You're parroting crap you've read elsewhere in leading you to make the error or believing that being a parrot equates to knowing what you're talking about.

I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on Kodak, but I have read things written by people who profess to be. I'll happily read more if you'd like to point me in the right direction.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[penguinchris]

Both Canon and Nikon made cameras 50-70 years ago. Whether or not they were widely available in the US is of course a different matter.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[Orange Crush]

There are other good CEOs out there. Apple's board just happened to pick a few terrible ones. Tim Cook's been running the show for a while now, as Steve's health declined. So far, things look good for Apple's continued success.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[Anonymous Coward]

Lev13tian is right. Give it time before Apple fails.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[Billly Gates]

Not even close.

Old Apple circa 1996 I would agree.

NPR just had a story today about where Kodak and Fitijsu split paths in 1995 when both companies experimented with digital cameras.

Basically, MBA executives at Kodak loved the insane profit margins of film vs the razor thin margins of CCD/digital based cameras. So they focused just on film to because excel told them it was the way to go. ... they forgot the customer is part of the equation and digital did cut into films profit margins. Just that their competitors did to them. Did they learn their lesson? No they stayed gung ho on film film film and made xray, medical film devices, analog copiers, etc.

They all went digital too and left the market to Fijitsu.

Apple
Did focus on the mac which was years ahead of its time in 1984 and beyond. They kept innovating. The Powerbooks were the first real successful laptops. When Steve Jobs came back he did not let appliances and phones take over. He embraced new things like the IPad and made a better phone even if it did cut into profits of its expensive macbook lines.

Apple is not going anyway. It has vision. Kodak was the technological marvel a century ago and won by getting ahead. This is a classic business case study that should be taught in MBA business school that you need vision and not just numbers on a spreadsheet to run a company. Kodak fucked up and if the market is going somewhere else you can't force it to come back to you. You need to accept lower profit margins or outdo the competition with something more awesome and advanced to stay ahead. Apple provides while Kodak does not.

MS is more in danger in my opinion. Once critical business apps become tabletized HTML 5 apps in 10 years why would you need Windows or Win32? MS is trying hard with IE 9, Windows Phone, and Windows 8 but it is in more in trouble long term in my opinion.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[Billly Gates]

They were greedy and wanted fat film margins,

Their other areas were medical imaging, copiers, and xray machines. All film based.

They too went digital and they had nothing left. Kodak were right when they say traditional film over a decade ago. Only people like grandmas used film based cameras a decade ago when making a new purchase.

Companies like Walmart have shown you can be the richest wealthiest company on earth with hardly any margins at all. It is all volume. Finance 101 teaches you sell high volume low margins like grocery stores and walmart or low volume high margins like cars or jewelry. Kodak could have looked at the low margin camera sales as an opportunity to sell to Chinese or Indian consumers who would never be able to afford a $200 camera previous. There are more of them than wealthy Americans and Europeans

But nooo they wanted high volume AND high prices. Sorry that doesn't work and never does outside of Wallstreet

Re:Kodak's Moment

[Billly Gates]

Funny

I think of the MPAA/RIAA when I read your post. I am hoping they go the same way. I have not bought a CD in quite awhile compared to every month back in the 1990s.

IBM barely survived its cannibalism it started with the introduction of the IBM PC. Apple and Radio Shack were eating its lunch FAST if they did put something out fast.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[Billly Gates]

No NPR confirmed it today on the radio. The show was more detailed about its demise. Yes they did focus stronger on the professional market as they feared the low end market.

Kodak then castrated itself by only focusing on the professional market and looked into film based devices as they loooved those fat margins. Problem is professional grade digital came into the scene and so did digital based film devices like xrays, mri equipment, and so on.

Nothing left. Rolls Royce may make nice cars but how many do you see on the road today? Are they even still in business?

Re:Kodak's Moment

[Anonymous Coward]

That isn't the problem. The problem is they invested in technology that none of their customers wanted. Kodak customers DIDN'T want digital at all. Their profits show that as well. Their digital lines lost money every year while their film sales out profited everything else they were doing. It's still that way, they still sell a hell of a lot of film. I personally hand kodak at least $2000 a year for film. They need to just ditch everything else and concentrate on where they have a technical edge, and that is still in film. Film still has far superior contrast, resolution, and dynamic range as compared to digital. Even after that stops being the case, I'll still be shooting film because I've yet to find a digital camera that is made as well as something like a ziess contax.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[walshy007]

True, my mistake, I got the years wrong, instead of 50-70 years ago, it was 80-100.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[tehcyder]

I'd give you the mobile app and possibly the tablet, but certainly not the other three.

IBM PCs basically defined the home computer market, as they were relatively affordable compared with Macs. Until a few years ago, the only people using Macs were reasonably well off writers, and other creative types using Photoshop and so on. In the 1990s I can't remember any normal user who had a Mac at home.

Apple were obviously successful in the long term with the iPod, but there was nothing particularly groundbreaking about the original. What they did do well was adapt quickly e.g. dropping the Mac/firewall only connection.

There were most certainly mobile phones around before the iPhone, although it is arguable that it made a smartphone into a mass market gadget.

Re:Kodak's Moment

[tehcyder]

There will come a time when Apple will become a vast corporate machine like Microsoft

What, as opposed to the tiny start up they are now?

Re:Kodak's Moment

[MightyYar]

Not that I disagree with your post, but comparisons with retailers like Walmart aren't very useful. A retailer's biggest risk is inventory - their capital investment is mostly shelving and trucks and warehouses... all stuff with a lot of value if things ever went wrong. In other words, their capital is all tied up in fairly safe investments.

A manufacturer has capital costs that are much higher-risk - specialized tooling, custom parts in inventory, customized factory space, etc. If things go wrong, most of that money is just gone. The risk to capital is much higher.

Investors are willing to take lower returns on lower risk - why would you invest in Kodak if they were getting the same returns as Walmart, even if revenue and profits were the same?

Re:Kodak's Moment

[mcgrew]

That's a little before my time ;)

Re:Kodak's Moment

[Anonymous Coward]

Rolls Royce may make nice cars but how many do you see on the road today? Are they even still in business?

To answer your question, yes they still exist, but as separate companies.

Printers were a bad idea

[PlatyPaul]

I was a summer intern at KRL (Kodak Research Labs), working on digital image processing, when the whole printer thing took off, and it was painfully obvious to us that it was a terrible move. Putting Bill Lloyd (formerly head of inkjet work) in place as CTO seemed to cement things in place.

Who prints anything at home these days, anyway? Especially photos....

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[sglewis100]

Wasn't their whole printer strategy selling printers with low cost ink? So am I understanding this correctly - their camera business wasn't making money, so they entered into the printer business, but rather than sell low margin printers and high margin ink, they sell low margin printers and low margin ink?

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[thegarbz]

Who prints anything at home these days, anyway? Especially photos....

Ask Epson and Canon who seem to be making quite the killing selling high-end yet still overpriced photoprinters for the home and to photographers. A printer sale often means a continuous source of income as companies screw customers on the cost of ink. You'd be amazed how many people actually have reasonable photo printers at home and do their own printing.

Sure the local Fuji shop is very cheap when you print a 6x4, but as soon as you step away from that standard size home printing starts looking better and better.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[gstoddart]

Who prints anything at home these days, anyway? Especially photos....

Printing and photocopying we actually do in our house ... expense reports and other things like that being the main driver. Not daily, but often enough.

Photos, I've been convinced for the last few years isn't cost effective to print ... you can get prints at an actual photo place for so cheap now, you couldn't buy the ink and paper for what it would cost you. I think the last time I got prints it was about 7 cents/print.

However, the last two photo printers we had were Kodak ... and they were absolute crap. One failed and got replaced within a month or so, and its replacement died a similar way. It was cheaply made, worked poorly, and didn't last very long. We pretty much decided we'd never buy another Kodak product again.

So, Kodak's demise may have been coming for years ... but in the end, I blame the quality of their consumer products. They were trying to compete on the bottom end, but in the end, it was just a race to the bottom.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[mapkinase]

When people say "who does X nowadays" it does not mean that nobody does it. It means that the niche for X shrank significantly. So should Kodak, but it should not automatically mean bankruptcy.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it was a bad idea but the quality of the Kodak printer I had was bad and the last Kodak camera I bought was not great either . Am much as I thought low cost in cartridges are a good idea, I really need a printer that prints.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Low volume printers and low volume ink would just be two parts of the successful photo printing equation--but generally speaking, photo papers were still quite expensive and photo printing does also use a lot of ink even if it is low volume ink. That means frequent replacement of both the photo papers and ink even just printing 4 in x 6 in photos.

Also, with today's widescreen monitors--and they do provide a better resolution than a CRT monitor--the photo can be viewed on screen with a high enough resolution, so again no real reason to print--just e-mail the photo to the recipient and they can view it too.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that Brother printers seem to be the best bang for the buck (quality printers at a low price with low priced ink)... with only a fraction of the overhead of a failing company to support.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[rtb61]

Gossip on the web had it that Kodak's demise is largely due to inflated executive salaries and nepotism in executive placement as their only real business strategy going forward or was that backward and down the drain.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[DerekLyons]

Photos, I've been convinced for the last few years isn't cost effective to print ... you can get prints at an actual photo place for so cheap now, you couldn't buy the ink and paper for what it would cost you. I think the last time I got prints it was about 7 cents/print.

This only work so long as you're content with what you can get for 7 cents/print. Like everything else in the race to the bottom, you get what you pay for - and the 7 cent print is the equivalent of a Big Mac. Cheap, satisfying in the short term, but utter crap.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[omnichad]

It may not make a lot of money, but it sure made me happy. I'm a happy Kodak printer customer and I've referred a dozen or so people to them. I never print pictures, either. It's just a good, reliable printer for me. It would be sad if I stopped being able to get ink for that printer. Their drivers aren't perfect, but they're much more reasonable than HP, and they use Bonjour, which is kind of nice.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[omnichad]

Are you talking about the "photo printers" that spit out 4x6 prints or the newer all-in-one inkjet printers? I happen to really like the full-size ones, but never heard anything good about the dock'n'print style printers.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[gstoddart]

This only work so long as you're content with what you can get for 7 cents/print. Like everything else in the race to the bottom, you get what you pay for - and the 7 cent print is the equivalent of a Big Mac. Cheap, satisfying in the short term, but utter crap.

Actually, this was from a place that was doing full on photo processing with the machine and all that ... a 4x6 glossy print on proper photo paper and with the good inks, not inkjet.

It was as good a quality of print as you'd be able to get from one of those places ... and it's a "grandma" gift where she got a bunch of prints of a family event. We weren't looking for poster sized prints, or fine art prints.

Granted, that might have been a sale, because I see now the same place is about 19 cents for a 4x6 print. Still, even at 19 cents, I don't think you could buy the ink and paper for that much.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[timeOday]

HP had the expensive ink market covered. Kodak's only hope was to undercut them.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[morgauxo]

If that killed corporations there wouldn't be any today.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[Mr. Droopy Drawers]

I have a Kodak printer. Bonjour is the THE REASON why I hate it. Why do I need to install that on my computer just to print?

MS had the "network printer" model in place for a long time. Why didn't they just use it? It provides for driver downloads and my router takes care of discovery.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[omnichad]

That model doesn't provide for network scanning. They wanted to use the same networking technology for printing and scanning. Sounds fine to me. I use a hackintosh at home, though. Works fine with both and IP address changes don't matter.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[mcgrew]

Like everything else in the race to the bottom, you get what you pay for - and the 7 cent print is the equivalent of a Big Mac. Cheap, satisfying in the short term, but utter crap.

Everyone gets it backwards. "You get what you pay for" is sales talk, and often incorrect. You do, however, usually pay for what you get... but not often do you get what you think you're paying for. Take that big mac. Cheap? Not compared to a hamburger you cook at home. A nickle for the meat, a penny for the cheese and bread, fraction of a penny for the stove's gas, five minutes of your time. Not cheap in the least; you're paying for convinience, for laziness, not a hamburger. And if you eat lunch at lunchtime, it isn't even convinient unless you think spending fifteen minutes idling your engine at the drive through is "convinient."

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[DerekLyons]

This only work so long as you're content with what you can get for 7 cents/print. Like everything else in the race to the bottom, you get what you pay for - and the 7 cent print is the equivalent of a Big Mac. Cheap, satisfying in the short term, but utter crap.

Actually, this was from a place that was doing full on photo processing with the machine and all that ... a 4x6 glossy print on proper photo paper and with the good inks, not inkjet.

McDonald's does full on cooking, and a Big Mac contains proper beef in it's patty and good flour in it's bun - but it's still crap. Even 'good' inks and 'proper' photo papers come in a wide range of qualities and price points. (And that place likely buys them in bulk.)
 

It was as good a quality of print as you'd be able to get from one of those places ... and it's a "grandma" gift where she got a bunch of prints of a family event. We weren't looking for poster sized prints, or fine art prints.

I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't useful as a "grandma" gift... I send those cheap prints of my snapshots to my mom (all my grandparents being deceased) too. (She gets a fine print of my higher end work every couple of years for Christmas, mostly she just isn't interested in them but she does get put out if she doesn't get one every now and again.) I was just pointing out that there is more to photo printing than the low end places that you cite as there is more to food than fast food burgers.
 

Granted, that might have been a sale, because I see now the same place is about 19 cents for a 4x6 print. Still, even at 19 cents, I don't think you could buy the ink and paper for that much.

Even though I can't make a Big Mac as cheap as McDonald's, that doesn't change it's essential nature.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[mcgrew]

Who prints anything at home these days, anyway? Especially photos....

Elderly people... I had this same conversation with my 84 year old mom, who wanted to know if Walgreen's would print pictures from her new digital camera. "Why," I asked her, "would you want to print them when you can see them on your computer monitor, much larger and sharper?"

"Well," she said, "I like hardcopies. And what if I want to mail them to somebody?"

"You have email."

"But what of I want to mail it through the post office?"

I just sighed and told her "yes, Walgreens can print them for you."

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[frank_adrian314159]

Ask Epson and Canon who seem to be making quite the killing selling high-end yet still overpriced photoprinters for the home and to photographers.

This. I have an Epson I use for my work and my wife has a Cannon. They both work well. Yes, the ink is expensive. They're still cheaper / more convenient than going to a print shop.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[mikestew]

Kodak also had an on-again-off-again affair with printers. I bought one their laser printers for our business in the mid-90s. Kodak knows imaging, right? The price was right, and it had a good spec/price ratio. All was well until the toner ran out and I found out they quit supporting it almost as soon as it was released. Oh well, should have stuck to an HP LaserJet. Note to self: nothing else from Kodak that doesn't involve film.

Years later Kodak's making printers again. Oh, I don't think so, Kodak. Beside, as parent points out, I was already weening our house off of printing at that point anyway.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[BattleApple]

Their consumer products may be crap, but their commercial printers are pretty impressive. There are two of these in the building I'm working in right now.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[adolf]

I keep an old Laserjet around for printing things that needs printed (occasional forms, instructions, grocery lists) which has cost me nothing but paper in the past 5 years.

Otherwise, I gave up on home color printing a long time ago. I have an HP Photosmart which does produce very nice results when fed decent paper and the correct assortment of ink, but it lives at the top of the closet.

I found that I either used the printer enough that it seemed expensive, or I used the printer infrequently enough that it was also expensive (ink dries in/on print heads requiring a lot of wasted ink during multiple cleaning processes, or new cartridges).

For awhile, I missed printing color maps for driving directions, but the onslaught of cheap available GPS devices has made that a practical non-issue.

But that's all I missed.

I have snapshots printed at Wal-Mart when I want them somewhere other than on a computer. I just upload them, they print them on their wet-process photo printer, and I pick them up later. They've also got a large-format HP inkjet machine there that does well with bigger things which spits stuff out on nice, heavy stock.

And that's just photos. For other print jobs that are either big or special or color (or some variation of these), I just fire off a PDF to the friendly local print shop and they've got it ready for me in an hour or two, packaged in whatever way I want, on whatever kind of paper I ask for.

It's cheap, it's adequately convenient, the output is fine for my non-critical purposes, and I don't have to maintain anything myself.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[penguinchris]

Where do you get your meat, cheese, and bread so cheap?

To make a burger I'd expect to pay $2-3 in raw ingredients - personally I'd probably pay a couple dollars more to buy a good quality fresh roll and good cheese.

It's an interesting dilemma for poor people - McDonalds etc. is actually cheaper than making a burger yourself (even considering opportunity costs, for some people anyway), assuming you don't spend too much on profit centers like drinks and whatever else they overcharge for (I don't eat McDonald's). But I'm sure even the least-educated people realize it isn't healthy to eat that stuff every day, even if it's the most affordable option for them.

To get back to the point - "you get what you pay for" is often incorrect, but if you're a savvy shopper it's easily true most of the time. You have to be able to tell when something is massively marked up just for the sake of profit. If you eliminate such items, then for many (not all) things there really is a marked difference in the quality of your various options, correlating at least roughly with their price.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[tehcyder]

Who prints anything at home these days, anyway? /quote No one, obviously. All those sales of printers are for use as doorstops. It's amazing that any toner or ink cartridges get sold at all.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[tehcyder]

It's probably be a generational thing, but I much prefer looking at decent sized well-printed photos. Then again, I prefer printed books to an e-reader.

I can almost hear myself asking everyone to get off my lawn.

Re:Printers were a bad idea

[mcgrew]

I made an old man mistake on the price of meat; the patty is more like fifty cents (ten patties for five bucks at WalMart, each patty about twice as big as a McD patty) than five.

But a loaf of bread is 89 cents at either WalMart or County Market (buns are more expensive retail, but you can bet McD spends practically nothing on them; economy of scale). McD quality cheese (the cheapest shit you can find) is a buck for thirty slices at WalMart (I pay more, I like velveeta, which is about 3 times as expensive but worth every penny at County Market). Condiments are practically free; a bottle of ketchup, mustard, mayo lasts me for months, and they're maybe a dollar or two per bottle. So you're still talking less than a buck, over three times cheaper. Fries? A small order of fries is a dollar, one potato will make three small McD fries -- and a whole bag of potatos costs two dollars. You're talking a nickle per potato, so discounting everything but ingredients that three orders of "value fries" that they get three bucks for cost a nickel in raw material -- and that's retail, McD buys wholesale and pays FAR less. I used to make my own potato chips before I lost my spud chipper in the last move (probably boxed up in the basement), and a single potato would make enough chips to fill a three dollar bag! And as they were fresh out of the pan they tasted a lot better, too.

You mention that you would get a better cut of meat, but McD doesn't. Your $3 burger is more like a twenty dollar burger in a nice restaraunt than a Big Mac.

You mention drinks, they make a killing on drinks. A twenty dollar drum of syrup will garner hundreds of dollars in soda sales.

There are restaraunts (not fas food) where you do get your money's worth, at least here in Springfield. D'Arcy's Pint is incredibly reasonable; corned beef and cabbage with even better potatos than my grandma made is under ten bucks, and corned beef is expensive. If you're ever in Springfield, you owe youself a meal there! I took one woman to dinner there who hadn't eaten there before, and she claimed to have gotten a "food orgasm."

I knew a fellow who owned a few bars and restaraunts, and he knew his stuff. Great cook and businessman, really sharp guy. He'd had recipes published in gourmet cooking magazines, and the food was incredibly cheap. His secret? Sell the food at almost cost to get butts on chairs, and make the money on drinks. That's probably the same business plan D'Arcy's has, their beer is a little high but not REAL high.

I think McDonald's business plan is "people are fucking lazy and impatient". Seems to work for them.

You get the frost pits, we do the rest

[Hognoxious]

tl;dr: don't be afraid of cannibalizing your own sales. Because if you don't, some other bugger will anyway.

Re:You get the frost pits, we do the rest

[ledow]

That's a good rule for business, I like it.

Kodak died by not getting into the digital "thing" quickly enough and then doing poorly by the time they did. Same with Polaroid, really. Too stubborn to admit that their technology was coming to the end of an era and develop a replacement and instead letting their competitors (and even just random no-name companies at the time) do it for them.

At least they'll die having done almost nothing but film photography, so it looks like they just died as the industry for that died, rather than dragging the name through the dirt for decades trying to cling on to film's replacement.

I don't get attached to brands, but I do object to people running their businesses badly. The world's largest consumer of silver at one point - but totally failed to adapt when everyone stopped buying film. It's not a nice epitaph.

Re:You get the frost pits, we do the rest

[PlatyPaul]

Wrong, wrongity wrong wrong.

They tried going digital.

They were just too late.

Re:You get the frost pits, we do the rest

[NotQuiteInsane]

Better the money goes into your pot (even if it theoretically "damages" another of your business units -- in this case digital vs. film) than one of your competitors.

Kodak have brought this on themselves. I'll be stocking up on their film though. EliteChrome EBX and Ektar are pretty nice...

Re:You get the frost pits, we do the rest

[hedwards]

Technically, Kodak invented digital then tried to bury it before anybody noticed. It's something which happens fairly often when the CEO can't fathom how to lead the company into the future.

Re:You get the frost pits, we do the rest

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a good rule for business, I like it.

Kodak died by not getting into the digital "thing" quickly enough and then doing poorly by the time they did. Same with Polaroid, really. Too stubborn to admit that their technology was coming to the end of an era and develop a replacement and instead letting their competitors (and even just random no-name companies at the time) do it for them.

At least they'll die having done almost nothing but film photography, so it looks like they just died as the industry for that died, rather than dragging the name through the dirt for decades trying to cling on to film's replacement.

They could have bribe^H^H^H^H^Hlobbied some politicians like the music "industry" (non-independent, small producers excluded) do.

Re:You get the frost pits, we do the rest

[cabjf]

Kodak suffered under extremely poor management for at least the last two decades. The refusal to change with the times (like trying to shelve digital cameras to protect film sales) and selling off their profitable departments (like medical imaging) for short term gains have left them with almost nothing of value. I'm not sure how much of what is left is worth restructuring. At this point, creditors, shareholders, and retirees might be better off with a liquidation sale.

Re:You get the frost pits, we do the rest

[edoules]

He said: 'Kodak died by not getting into the digital "thing" quickly enough and then doing poorly by the time they did.' Does that make him right, rightitty right right?

Re:You get the frost pits, we do the rest

[Anonymous Coward]

My Kodak DC240 2.1MP digital camera was my first digital camera and really very good compared with the competition at the time (easter 2000) still have it today and it works (although it is rarely used) I let the kids use it on trips as more robust than a modern camera and easier to take pictures on than a camera phone (virtual through lens viewfinder)

Re:You get the frost pits, we do the rest

[PlatyPaul]

Their research arm is still doing quite well. If they want to sell, of course, local co-giants Xerox and Bausch + Lomb may be interested in snapping up those top optics and computer vision scientists....

Re:You get the frost pits, we do the rest

[PlatyPaul]

Yes, got hung up on paragraphs 3 and 4 there. My bad.

Re:You get the frost pits, we do the rest

[DerekLyons]

Kodak died by not getting into the digital "thing" quickly enough and then doing poorly by the time they did. Same with Polaroid, really. Too stubborn to admit that their technology was coming to the end of an era and develop a replacement and instead letting their competitors (and even just random no-name companies at the time) do it for them.

That's a common mythperception - and utterly wrong. Kodak was an early entrant into the digital realm, and a strong leader there for a number of years. Where they failed was in just not being able to keep up - their product cycles were a bit too long for digital/'net era and the steadily fell further and further behind. They still maintained strong sales (especially in the professional segment), but rather than capitalizing on this they started to push products out to meet their competitors release cycles rather than emphasizing quality as they had previously. It only took a couple of generations of this before they'd utterly trashed their reputation.
 

At least they'll die having done almost nothing but film photography

On the contrary. Kodak remains one of the most important designers and manufacturers of digital sensors in the world. Leica's current crop of top end rangefinders, widely lauded for their image quality feature Kodak designed and manufactured sensors As does a wide range of Olympus equipment and backs for medium format camera's.
 
But, as with their commercial products, they've started to fall increasingly behind. Their product cycle is still too long and they have continuing problems in converting their (until very recently) world class R&D into products on the shelf.

Re:You get the frost pits, we do the rest

[ledow]

Kodak invented the digital camera. They didn't capitalise it. Kodak digital cameras are almost unheard of and have been even since the early days. In Europe they had precisely zip of any percentage of the market at all (and Europe's a pretty big market to be missing out on). The only one I've *ever* seen in the flesh was an early 1.something MP one.

Strong sales of even one model does not a success make - they failed to get into the digital thing quickly enough to make a success, even if they invented it. It's not a research failure but a business failure.

Similarly for everything else - their name is spattered across lots of industry area but they failed to keep up to the point where they actually made money. I'm not suggesting the products aren't there - they aren't making money. Any idiot can be selling millions at pitiful profit margins enough to sink even the largest company, and that's what they did.

They also culled everything but film in their history, several times. Their R&D and technical capability was good. Their business sense was non-existent. Nobody heard of Kodak digital cameras or printers until they already had burned through a dozen from competitors.

Re:You get the frost pits, we do the rest

[nahdude812]

Wrong, wrongity wrong wrong.

They tried [kodak.com] going [kodak.com] digital [kodak.com].

They were just too late.

Perhaps you missed the part where he said:

Kodak died by not getting into the digital "thing" quickly enough and then doing poorly by the time they did.

I wouldn't have pointed it out except you were so flamboyantly adamant that he missed the point he had actually opened with.

Re:You get the frost pits, we do the rest

[DerekLyons]

The only one I've *ever* seen in the flesh was an early 1.something MP one.

I hate to break it to you, but you aren't the universe. I have three different Kodak digital cameras in my collection, the latest being a 5MP C340 purchased in 2009. If my mom sends me my (recently deceased) dad's camera collection rather than leaving it to me in her will... That'll add another four different models - one being a brand new 14MP Z5010.
 

Strong sales of even one model does not a success make - they failed to get into the digital thing quickly enough to make a success

If the sales had been strong of just one model, or if they hadn't been an early entrant... you'd have a point. But you're wrong on both counts. Especially in the professional segment they were crushingly dominant with strong sales and high profits early on. But, for the reasons I discussed in my earlier reply, they let that lead slip from their fingers.
 

Nobody heard of Kodak digital cameras or printers until they already had burned through a dozen from competitors.

That may be true for you, but you're supremely ignorant of the facts and utterly disconnected from reality.

Re:You get the frost pits, we do the rest

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Kodak Invented digital cameras, and the first digital camera I ever used was an Apple Quicktake manufacture by........ Kodak.

They wanted to get into it, but just never could get their minds away from "sell cheap cameras to sell expensive film and processing". It was more business model than tech.

As much as people like to bash Apple here, Apple is one of the better ones to say "hell yes we'll sell what destroys our current product". It's released iPods that cannibalized existing ones (Nano replaced Mini), and the iPhone/iPod/iPad mutual overlap while it eats away a bit of laptop sales.

Re:You get the frost pits, we do the rest

[Matt_R]

My first two digital cameras were Kodak (DC210, DX4530). My last two were Canon (350D, 5D2).

Re:You get the frost pits, we do the rest

[tehcyder]

I hate to break it to you, but you aren't the universe

You evil bastard, I bet you're the guy who told all the other kids at school that Santa Claus isn't real.

Failure to adapt...

[ToadProphet]

Funny how little concern is shown by legislators about the failure of this business due to changing technology, yet it is so determined to protect those in the music and movie industry.

Re:Failure to adapt...

[L4t3r4lu5]

Legislators would pay a whole lot more attention if Kodak gave them a couple hundred grand in "campaign contributions".

Re:Failure to adapt...

[Morty]

There is a big difference between "people no longer have a use for any of your products" and "people still want your products but have figured out how to avoid paying for them."

Re:Failure to adapt...

[Anonymous Coward]

Failure to adapt _quickly_, compounded by not paying attention to what happened to Polaroid before it, and failure to pay attention to Adobe, particularly at Adobe Photoshop.

If they hadn't had tunnel vision, they could have been the ones to do Photoshop, and really, they should have been the ones.

But business is all about seeing opportunities and exploiting them. Too bad for Kodak.

The difference between Kodak and music/movies though is that Kodak never owned the pictures people were taking. You can bet if they had, the landscape would be very different. Music and movie studios deserve to be able to protect their IP, but illegal copying is _already_ illegal and I'd claim we don't need more laws, particularly more laws that turn legal acts into illegal acts.

Re:Failure to adapt...

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how little concern is shown by legislators about the failure of this business due to changing technology, yet it is so determined to protect those in the music and movie industry.

(grin) Don't give them ideas, lest they'll consider Kodak "too big to fail" as they did with GM

Re:Failure to adapt...

[Snirt]

one of Darwin's theories at work.

Re:Failure to adapt...

[bws111]

That is just stupid. Legislation does not help if people do not want your product (film cameras). However, if people DO want and use your product, but find ways to avoid paying for it, the legislation helps. The 'products' movie studios and record labels are making are movies and songs, not little shiny disks. The fact that piracy exists proves that people want the product.

The two things are not similar at all.

Re:Failure to adapt...

[MightyMartian]

Not really. At the end of the day, in either case, technology has transformed the market.

Re:Failure to adapt...

[Anonymous Coward]

Those industries make money off selling the medium like shiny little discs. Yes, it's the content that's relevant, but the failure to adapt comes in not providing a medium that the customer chooses over... say... downloading a copy using BT for free.

Re:Failure to adapt...

[BetterSense]

The difference is in your imagination.

People want to capture images. They used to do it by buying film and making physical photographs. Now they do it by capturing data. This sucks for businesses based on selling physical photographic materials, unless they adapt radically.

People want to listen to music. They used to do it by buying physical records and tapes. Now they do it by aquiring data. This sucks for businesses based on selling physical media, unless they adapt radically.

If you propose that the "content companies" SHOULD go out of business since their services are no longer needed in a digital world, you will hear all kinds of wailing about "without special copyright protection and allowing the content companies to shake people down for money they don't deserve, those companies would go out of business!!!111!". But in the case of Kodak, oddly nobody seems to by sympathetic to Kodak, or suggest that they should get special royalties from digital images since they everyone is "stealing" that money they "would have made" otherwise i.e. grandparent's whole point.

Re:Failure to adapt...

[kiwimate]

Would mod you up if I could.

This is exactly it. People may (obviously in this audience do, and do so ferociously) believe that copyright infringement laws are anachronistic, but it really ought to be obvious there's a difference, as Morty neatly says.

One situation is a company that's not adapting to legal threats to their business model. The other situation is an industry that's not adapting to illegal threats to their business model. Whether those actions in the latter case should be illegal is a separate issue; copyright infringement today is illegal, and that is the difference.

Re:Failure to adapt...

[mcgrew]

The record industry's problem was indeed similar to kodak's. The record industry used to sell physical objects that had actual value. Now they call themselves the "music industry" instead of the "record industry" and guess what? They're selling the wrong product. Their mistake was attacking Napster -- they should have used it as a conduit for selling CDs, but instead equated CDs with MP3s. Had they embraced "piracy" rather than fighting it, they would still be selling shiny disks. Nobody want to pay for something intangible. people want stuff.

I'll be 60 this year, I've had free music all my life. Why the change now, just because it's digital? I'd far prefer to pick up a CD at the store and rip it than to log on to iTunes or somewhere and buy intangible bits that can disappear without warning or any trace they ever existed.

Re:Failure to adapt...

[bws111]

You are completely wrong. Your argument is basically 'since we have this wonderful new printing press, we no longer need authors, editors, or proofreaders'. It makes no sense at all.

When you 'capture data' to take a digital picture, Kodak has no involvement (other than maybe patents which your camera manufacturer has already paid for). There is no need for physical photographic materials, and no legislation is going to fix that.

When you 'acquire data' which is a song or movie, someone else is most definitely involved. Someone create that work. Someone paid for it. Someone produced it, etc. That someone is who IP laws protect, not some random CD/DVD pressing factory.

If you don't think there is a need for 'content companies', don't use their product. There is no legislation that says you have to buy their product. There is no legislation that says only members of the MPAA/RIAA can produce movies and records. However, IF you want their product, there is no reason they should not benefit from creating a product you desire.

Stop trying to equate 'content producers' with 'physical media producers'. They are not the same thing. There is no legislation that protects physical media producers.

Re:Failure to adapt...

[Morty]

In the case of film photography, the demand is gone. Legislation cannot recreate that demand.

In the case of music, the demand for music is still there, but is being met by illegal suppliers at below the legal suppliers' rates. The legislators hope to suppress the illegal suppliers through appropriate regulation. This makes economic sense. Their actual implementation may not make sense from the perspectives of how the Internet works, or due to constitutional / free speech concerns. But what they're doing does make economic sense.

Re:Failure to adapt...

[MightyMartian]

It makes short-term economic sense. In the long term, they are no more going to hold back the tide than the Japanese did when the Shoguns banned firearms.

Re:Failure to adapt...

[Anonymous Coward]

The film was the medium, not the content.

The demand for the content (pictures) isn't gone. It's increased.

Re:Failure to adapt...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah. The people supporting the demise of content companies are largely young people, well known for their inability to make intelligent decisions. Eventually, they will mature and gain wisdom. When that happens, they will realize that not only is having people working and getting paid important, but that the lack of economic incentives has lead to a world where content is produced solely by amateurs (in every sense of the word). Yep, the stuff is free, but boy is it awful. When the realization of that horror sets in, they will be pushing hard for economic incentives to get people to create. Only now, because they are the 'digital generation', they will know how to create both laws and technology to allow those economic incentives to work.

Re:Failure to adapt...

[MightyMartian]

It's note like most of the stuff you pay for is any good.

The media industry had a century and a bit of product with economic scarcity because copying films and and musical recordings was really difficult. It was a model based upon being able to control manufacturing and distribution, not upon actual creation. I mean, it's not like people weren't writing plays are composing symphonies until the film projector and the phonograph were invented.

History is replete with products wiped out by new technologies. All the laws in the world won't change the fundamental fact that what made the media companies wealthy, that control of distribution, is gone, it's dead. Maybe it means the end of big blockbuster films, although my thinking is that at some point theaters will figure out how to maximize value-added services. Maybe it means the end of, um, Lady Gaga albums, although most successful musical acts make a lot more money from touring than they do from record sales (in no small part because of the way labels have written contracts).

We hard art and music long before IP law existed, and we will have it even after Warner Bros. can no longer co-opt Congress as the enforcement branch of its litigation department.

Re:Failure to adapt...

[KingAlanI]

I figure the new focus on something besides recordings applies to megastars as well.
Are you saying that without big label dominance, there wouldn't _be_ megastars?
Also, it seems recordings would still exist, just not as the focus of the business model. People would still be making songs to use on tour - somebody might as well put out recordings of them.

Re:Failure to adapt...

[MightyMartian]

Maybe there won't be megastars in the future, or at least there will be far far fewer of them. In music and film, at least, megastars were a byproduct of the sort of promotion utilized by the media companies. Judging by the number of one or two hit wonders in the music business; or artists who only have a very short shelf life, labels are quite happy with that as well. The advantage of, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger or Led Zeppelin has been a consistent high level of income. Lots of people would pay to see even a mediocre Schwarzenegger film or buy a copy of even a lesser Zeppelin record.

In the music business, to some extent, that model was already eroding by the 1990s as the big labels found themselves in serious competition with smaller Indie labels, and in general the whole market is far more fragmented now than it was, say, thirty or forty years ago. That's what pisses me off about the piracy issue, that it essentially allows organizations like the MPAA and RIAA to blame piracy for revenue issues that may in fact be more deeply rooted.

Re:Failure to adapt...

[tehcyder]

Funny how little concern is shown by legislators about the failure of this business due to changing technology, yet it is so determined to protect those in the music and movie industry.

Kodak didn't get into trouble because their customers were stealing their products wholesale, leaving them with products they'd paid to develop and produce but little or no income.

*runs for cover*

Re:Failure to adapt...

[tehcyder]

Not really. At the end of the day, in either case, technology has transformed the market.

If no one is buying a product because they can get it for free there is no fucking market, is there? And companies won't be able to go on producing stuff out of charity.

I know the counter argument is that it would be no bad thing if there were no more shitty Justin Bieber songs and Transformers movies, and I agree. But the people downloading the shitty Justin Beber songs and Transformers movies obviously enjoy them.

Re:Failure to adapt...

[mikechant]

I'd far prefer to pick up a CD at the store and rip it than to log on to iTunes or somewhere and buy intangible bits that can disappear without warning or any trace they ever existed.

If you back up your (now non-DRMed) iTunes, Amazon, etc. purchases to (say) multiple external drives, they will never "disappear without warning or any trace they ever existed."
If you *just* relied on your CDs it is inevitable that given sufficient numbers of them and enough time passing that some will succumb to 'CD rot' (in my case, about 1% of all my commercially pressed CDs dating back over 25 years have 'gone bad' - visible pin prick holes, no longer recognized as valid optical discs).

However, I would agree that iTunes etc. is a potential disaster area for people who can't be bothered to or don't know how to make proper backups.

Re:Failure to adapt...

[KingAlanI]

Yeah, the media companies wouldn't be quite as able to manufacture megastars (IMO, Gaga isn't as bad in that regard), but the especially good (like Zeppelin) would still make it as megastars.

Make products, not lawsuits

[MachineShedFred]

If you make products that people actually want, rather than continue gravy-training the success of the past, maybe you'll have a sustainable revenue stream.

Sincerely,

Darl McBride

Kodaks fault

[Anonymous Coward]

I spent a lot of time at Kodak, they deserve this. It's not just a problem with not adapting, it was a cultural problem from the top down. They were more concerned with pushing out the core knowledgeable people to make way for PC policies. They had this crazy idea also of hireing only younger talent and tons of software engineers and not knowing what to do with them. To top that off, the people at the top would not even think of investing in any new idea unless it made a billion dollars right out of the box.

Fisher really started the ball rolling, Whitmore may have been slow for digital but Fisher wasted billions in China thinking he could cheaply make film and sell it over in China. From there most top talent left, even if Kodak has a true desire to turn it around, they can not, the core knowledge is gone.

don't buy Kodak printer

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Kodak printer. Piece of junk.

Re:don't buy Kodak printer

[scharkalvin]

Kodak needs to improve their printers. They also need to provide open source drivers for them. I never considered a Kodak printer because they are only useful as a paperweight on Linux or 'BSD.

Re:don't buy Kodak printer

[omnichad]

Well, worse, they showed a demonstration of a Linux print on a blog post, promised the driver was coming soon, and then never delivered. Never released either beta or source. That was almost four years ago.

Re:don't buy Kodak printer

[Anonymous Coward]

kodak printers work fine for text-based printing - try lpr at the command line

who needs to print graphic files anyway? :-)

Re:don't buy Kodak printer

[mcgrew]

Actually, even though I'm a kubuntu user, we're a tiny monority. Writing drivers for such a miniscule audience is good PR but hardly profitable otherwise. And kudos to them if they did, and to all other companies that do.

I never buy any product that states on its box that a requirement is Windows.

I bought a $20 bluetooth dongle for the win 7 notebook I haven't yet upgraded to Linux (yes, Linux is an upgrade from Windows), and it came with drivers for Windows and Apple, but no Linux drivers. I had to run a program on the Windows box to make it work, and since there are no optical drive on the notebook I had to first copy all the files to a thumb drive, and reboot twice.

I plugged it into the Linux box, and it just worked -- installation only involved plugging it into a USB port. More companies should be like that, but again, their only profit in it is PR. A printer that you can't just plug in and it Just Works without installing drivers and software and jumping through hoops is a piece of shit, but most people, having lived in the Microsoft world all their lives, don't realize that.

Kodak vs Fuji

[michaelmalak]

Fuji thrived while Kodak went bust. The Economist explains why.

Re:Kodak vs Fuji

[bobs666]

I like the picture: "The last Kodak moment?"
I think I saw something like this on shashdot, since the CCD was invented at Kodak:

Kodak Employee: I just invented the charge-coupled device and can make pictures with it.

Kodak Employer: You bone head we make and sell film. Now stop wasting company time and and get back to work making better cheaper film products.

Just goes to show that if you can't think out of the box, in time you will fail, Sooner of later.

Re:Kodak vs Fuji

[bobs666]

ok it seems that the CCD was invented at Bell labs. What a place to have worked 30 or 60 years ago. Still the two line drama is fiction, a fable. since it has a lesion to be learned.

Re:Kodak vs Fuji

[DerekLyons]

It's an interesting article, but there's enough errors in it that I wouldn't trust it entirely.

What becomes of the technology?

[PuddleBoy]

For decades, Kodak was a technology company. Maybe not 'high tech' by a slashdot definition, but their film and paper production and (at one time) optics tech was world renowned. Even today, any company, anywhere in the world, would be hard-pressed to create a production line with the tight controls that Kodak insisted on. They did ongoing research in materials and chemistry for almost 100 years.

Assuming they stay in a slide, what becomes of all that tech? Will the patents just get distributed to the highest bidders? And will the tech ever get used again?

OK, so I'm labeling myself as a throw-back to earlier times, but it is sad to see any venture, that attained such a height, brought low and then just ... dissipated.

Re:What becomes of the technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

The same can be said of analog audio recording technologies. If you look at vinyl at its peak or consumer reel-to-reel, the technology, physics and engineering that went into those technologies was the best available at the time and many brilliant minds worked on the problems. Where did that engineering go? It's all gone now, except for a few hobbyists.

Re:What becomes of the technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming they stay in a slide, what becomes of all that tech? Will the patents just get distributed to the highest bidders?

Yes. If they go into liquidation. Which if they keep up "business as usual" is going to happen. In total, their patents and tech are not as valuable as they think they are.

And will the tech ever get used again?

Not in its original form because all of it has been improved upon. Folks may buy the patents to head off the patent trolls who may buy the patents to sue.

Kodak is dying fast. Senior mgt has been trying to sell and license the patents since at least '10 and they're not getting very far. In the meantime, every business line is losing money - it looks like the film division is in the red for the first time well, ever. Analysts are reporting the film division losing money, but I am unable to get a report to verify it. 4th quarter isn't out yet.

Re:What becomes of the technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear PuddleBoy

I understand your concern. Kodak was a beloved consumer brand, renown through the world, yada, yada, yada. It's gone now. Get over it.

This is the Great West, PuddleBoy, where money talks and, well, everything that isn't money is crushed under the boot of totalit.... capitalism. Some enterprising capitalist will no doubt buy up those patents and sit on them like a goose on a nest waiting for some innocent person to just try and innovate something and then WHAM!!!!. Oh boy, just watch out. Those are MY patents. YOU'LL BE SUED INTO.....

But I digress.

Have no fear, PuddleBoy, no harm will come to the Kodak innovation. Nothing will ever again come from their innovations. It will be as though they never existed...

Excepting of course the huge amount of poisonous industrial waste Kodak created and the billions of useless, hazy, fading and out of focus photographs scattered across the world like confetti after a hurricane.

Sincerely,

Boy Faced Dog

Re:What becomes of the technology?

[Anonymous Coward]

as a rule of thumb, patents expire after 20 years, so a lot of Kodak's patents are in the public domain by now anyway.

If you actually invent stuff...

[voss]

and other people use it, then you have the right to be compensated for that use.

Were not talking about patent trolling, Kodak invented technologies, uses those technologies in its own products, and licenses those techs to other companies.
Whats wrong with that. Apple wants to use its patents to block competition while Kodak wants people (including Apple) to pay when they use its technology. Kodak historically has treated its customers and its employees very well(with pensions including retiree health insurance).

Re:If you actually invent stuff...

[c0lo]

and other people use it, then you have the right to be compensated for that use.

Even better: if you stop inventing and people stop using your products, you still have a right to fill for bankruptcy protection.

Re:If you actually invent stuff...

[morgauxo]

Absolutely nothing is wrong with that.

But... if that's all they do then all their factories (and many jobs) become dead weight. The large corporation becomes just a small R&D shop.

And are any of their patents new anyway? Nobody should get a profit on a patent forever! The same laws of physics that make you and I possible makes their 'invention' possible. And if they didn't discover something somebody else would have eventually. Nobody should really own that but you do get a 'guaranteed' profit for a time to make discovering it worth your while. Also, new inventions build on old ones. If patents last too long then progress becomes impossible because everything new has too many patents attached to it to be practical.

To continue to exist Kodak should be expected to do something new.

Re:If you actually invent stuff...

[MrAngryForNoReason]

The parent wasn't criticising making money from patents. The point they are making is that the money they make from patent royalties and selling off assets was nowhere near enough to keep them afloat and that has been clear for some time now.

Re:If you actually invent stuff...

[Anonymous Coward]

Pensions is a big reason they are going down the tubes.

Re:If you actually invent stuff...

[tehcyder]

Pensions is a big reason they are going down the tubes.

Yeah, let me guess, that and the unions. Plus government Health and Safety red tape. And taxes.

Re:If you actually invent stuff...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no union at Kodak. They have historically treated their employees well enough that there was not a need for one.

Re:If you actually invent stuff...

[Truedat]

The use of patents to block competition sure is evil.

But it makes me sick to my gut when I see these mega corps cross licensing their patents with each other in one big price-fixing, high-barrier-to-entry love-in.

Out of the two I prefer the first evil where at least the mega corps are locked in a fight to the death, rather than the second, which is after all the same as the first except with a much larger group of companies colluding together.

So yes Kodak is as much as a patent troll as anybody else and to argue that they wield their patents with noble righteousness is to validate the whole cosy cartel-fest.

Re:If you actually invent stuff...

[null etc.]

Oh yeah, they invent stuff...

http://news.cnet.com/Kodak-wins-Java-patent-suit/2100-1014_3-5394765.html

A federal jury on Friday ruled in favor of Kodak, and the photography giant is now seeking damages of $1 billion from Sun.

The case has outraged some opponents of software patents, who claim it is a textbook example of why software should not be patentable.

Kodak's case centered on three patents that it bought from Wang Laboratories in 1997, several years after Java was created. These patents--numbers 5,206,951, 5,421,012, and 5,226,161--referred to the integration of data between object managers, and between data managers, and to the integration of different programs that were manipulating data of different types.

The lawsuit was filed in February 2002 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York.

Kodak argued in court that these patents covered the method where an application "asked for help" from another application--such as in Java's object-oriented programming language.

Yeah, it seems like Kodak really spent a lot of time sitting around, inventing useful stuff. Or, you could realize that Kodak purchased an overly broad patent that should have never been granted in the first place, and then used it as a weapon of extortion against one of the largest innovators in the tech world.

Yeah, I'm pretty much hoping they go down in flames. The Kodak that Steve Jobs loved and admired has long been dead.

A Lesson learnt

[Snirt]

On the positive note, this offers a good lesson for existing and businesses yet to be born- Well thought, planned and executed strategies are always needed for short and long term survival.

Classic Case of Self-Inflicted Wounding

[ios and web coder]

I work in the digital imaging industry, and have long interacted with Kodak engineers and digital imaging people.

Many years ago, at a FlashPix conference (anyone remember that chestnut?), I remember talking to a digital imaging manager, who told me that his efforts to promote digital imaging were being deliberately sabotaged by higher-ups, who had thrown their lot in with film, and were seeing none of "this new-fangled digital imaging" stuff.

At that point, I knew that Kodak was screwed.

This is really sad. Kodak should have ruled the industry.

It is an object lesson in that phrase Stuart Brand coined: "Once a new technology rolls over you, you are either part of the road, or part of the steamroller."

Compensation not commensurate

[PlatyPaul]

Don't forget that Antonio Perez has been overpaid in comparison to the performance of the company.

Note that his pay went up in the rankings while Kodak slid further and further down.

Re:Compensation not commensurate

[mcgrew]

What high lever exec hasn't been? I mean, you have banks the US government bailinmg out giving million dollar bonuses to the CEOs that ran them into the ground to begin with. Not just banks -- look at Hewlett Packard, and how much Fiona was paid.

Divesting killed Kodak long ago

[digitalamish]

Back in the 80's Kodak had it hooks into a ton of different industries: medical, chemical, government, printing. Then someone 'smart' decided that some of those divisions weren't as profitable as the film production (which has RIDICULOUS profit margins). So, rather than continuing to expand, they decided to consolidation to squeeze out more profits.

Over time some of those divisions did die (copier divisions), but others thrived (Eastman Chemical). Kodak gambled their future on the continued sucess of film, and it was a very bad bet.

Re:Divesting killed Kodak long ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Kodak invented the digital camera. This cannot be stressed enough. They invented the digital camera, and then put it on the back burner and tried to out-market digital photography with film because film was making them so much money at the time. They kept trying to push film until 2004. Two thousand fucking four , and watched in horror as Canon and Nikon and Fujifilm devoured their customer base. When they finally did move into consumer-level digital cameras, they did the same thing they did with film cameras: sold the cameras at a loss and the film at a prof--wait a minute, with digital they can only do the first half of that!

More hypocrisy

[roman_mir]

Actually Kodak's destruction was helped not in a small way by government's actions preventing Kodak from diversifying their business the way they wanted to (we already had a discussion on this very topic only a few days ago here).

The big mistake that Kodak made was staying in US and not outsourcing immediately from US and running the business the way they saw fit and moving out of the way of IRS and US regulators. Big mistake, that was not repeated by many other companies since the nineties.

Not as Bad As It Looks

[NicknamesAreStupid]

The post is misleading; there is no Eastman Kodak. Kodak filed for bankruptcy. Eastman is doing fine - http://www.eastman.com./ They split in 1990.

Re:Not as Bad As It Looks

[Fred Or Alive]

Kodak is still the Eastman Kodak Company even after spinning off Eastman Chemicals, see for instance Kodak's own press release about going into bankruptcy protection. So calling them Eastman Kodak is accurate, if perhaps a little formal.

How can you not adapt to a technology that you

[Cutting_Crew]

INVENTED???? They have no excuse. Other have gotten caught up in failing to adapt to technologies that they are loosely coupled with but and some of that is at least understandable, even though we know it still shouldn't happen. However when your OWN product puts you out of business.. that is nothing short of amazing.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[squidflakes]

Obviously you're not a photographer.

Kodacell

[spitzak]

Shouldn't they merge with Duracell now?

An Icon

[DaMattster]

Kodak is an icon and it is unfortunate that poor management and cronyism has lead to this. The company missed the boat on digital photography because they had a pair of blinders on. Upper management continued to deny the inevitable demise of chemical photography. This is ironic because RIM's CEOs made a similar mistake by denying that people would use more than a tiny amount of data per month. Poor, egotistical management has lead to the demise of both icons.

it is patent trolling

[Anonymous Coward]

and other people use it, then you have the right to be compensated for that use.

Were not talking about patent trolling, Kodak invented technologies, uses those technologies in its own products, and licenses those techs to other companies.
Whats wrong with that.

Patent trolling is usually understood to be when a company or individual uses a strategy of making money from lawsuits rather than selling products. Kodak has all but admitted that this is its strategy.

Apple wants to use its patents to block competition while Kodak wants people (including Apple) to pay when they use its technology.

Say what you will about Apple, but it actually makes stuff and sells it to get money.

Kodak historically has treated its customers and its employees very well(with pensions including retiree health insurance).

Aww, are we one of the beneficiaries of the Great Yellow Father? Is that why we're jumping in to defend them? Aww, your loyalty is so touching.

Karma is B*tch

[TheBouncer2006]

Once George Eastman died Kodak began its death knell...

Kodak for many years was not profitable the big trend in the 1990's was to Layoff and fire a bunch of fulltime workers in the 3rd and 4th quaters right around July & August (just in time to save on paying out vacation pay) and then again around November to December up to 1 week before Christmas. I know this because I watched peoples parents who worked 15, 20, 25, and 30 years at the company get pink slips for no reason. Then right after the new year 1st quater they would bring in thousands of temp workers to backfill those jobs. Meanwhile this made their stock float and made them look profitable since a company profits are determined by sales - costs . So by lessing the payroll they more or less fudged their profitability for years. Look back at all the layoff annoucements they always happened in the 3rd and 4th quaters of the year just in time to give the stock a bounce in the new year.

Additionally Kodak workers in the Rochester are were very loyal they bought only Kodak Cameras and anything else that was Kodak. Years ago they had employee suggestion boxes where if employees made a suggestion that benefitted the company, a refinement to an assembly line, a better way to product something, a new product an employee could write in the suggestions and in turn if it helped make the company more money by cutting costs or creating new streams of revenue the employee would see a percentage bonus in their pay based on the amount of money that idea generated. I know many people whos parents and grandparents got monetary awards from this program. However by the 1990's Kodak managers would just take your ideas as theirs and the monetary award system was ended. They became greedy

Also over the years within a few square miles of Kodak Park was a cluster of kids coming down with rare cancers, http://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/02/nyregion/rochester-parents-fret-and-sue-over-cancer.html This is also a MUST READ http://www.coldtype.net/Assets/pdfs/17.Nim.May27.pdf

in this same area people were reporting strange odors, animals becoming sick and dying, weird residue on their cars and homes, and odd fluids seeping up in their basements. One of the famous areas was Rand Street. Kodak was sued and they ended up paying out an undisclosed amount to owners of some of the Rand Street Homes. Kodak was sued multiple times for illegal dumping, fined multiple times by the EPA for being out of compliance with their factory exaust stacks. However the EPA was up and down with them while they went against them on some things they backed them on others. It wasnt until the 1990's the EPA started cracking down on them. Prior to that they turned a blind eye to what they were doing.

However they still continued to pollute the rochester region. Eastman Chemical which was part of Kodak until spun off had experimental chemicals inside of it that no one even know what they would do if they ever escaped the drums they were being stored in and because they were deemed "experimental" they did not have the same precautions and established handling procedures as known chemicals which carry MSDS sheets etc. Toulene, Benze, TCE you name it they had it.

The management became a complete joke you had managers managing managers, managing managers they made the same mistake that Xerox did. Too many inexperienced or burned out chiefs and not enough Indians. The 1990s caused part of this issue with the EOE b.s. many times fully qualified caucasian workers were passed up for job promotions, management positions and so forth especially males. If you were Latino, African American, or Asian or had a certain sexual preference you would get promoted to the top in no time even if you didn't knw how to do the job or have a college background or experience in it. Xerox did the same thing. They were both paranoid of dis

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[morgauxo]

If photographers still see value in what Kodak offers then why aren't they buying their product?

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[gstoddart]

Obviously you're not a photographer.

I will miss Kodak for nostalgia reasons, not so much for any modern technology that we're losing. Kodachrome got phased out a few years ago, and their consumer cameras and printers, in my experience, are utterly crap.

I haven't used film in several years.

Now, if Nikon goes away, I will weep ... but, Kodak as it stands today? Not so much.

My phone takes 90 mins of Hi-Def video. What does

[Cutting_Crew]

that say about home video recorders in the next, let's say, 5 years? All those hi-def video recorders at the big box stores...gone with the wind. i hope that companies get their heads out of the sand.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[McGruber]

If photographers still see value in what Kodak offers then why aren't they buying their product?

I would be buying, but Kodak discontinued production of their wonderful Kodachrome-25 way back in 2001. Worse, the quality of the processing declined back in the late 90s.

Back in the day I consulted at Kodak.

[MooseDontBounce]

It was on a project called 'Software Robots' in there Applied AI department. Not as grand as it sounds. For part of my assignment I worked in a clean room with a computer, pad of paper, & pen. Nothing else was allowed in. I helped convert their film layer part formulas from one system to another. I always thought it was funny that a lowly consultant had the 'keys to the castle'. Of course everything was encrypted and I really didn't understand what I was reading. Almost everyone I worked with had 'Dr.' in their title. They were also some of the funniest people I ever worked with in my 27 years in the field. I was at Kodak Park and I still remember how funny it was to see people walking around with gun cases going to the on site rifle range. Sad day.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[squidflakes]

I am. I buy Tri-X film and XTOL developer in quantity, especially now that I might not be able to get any more.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Dishevel]

So. You are saying that ... "Nothing of value was lost"

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[JonahsDad]

And my mod points just expired. Darn.

Make Cameras not Printers!

[na1led]

Kodak started out by making cameras and now they plan to just make Printers? Makes no sense to me. Kodak still has the brand that fits with cameras, not Printers. When I think of buying a printer, I think HP, or Epson, not Kodak.

Tri-X

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll have to pry the Tri-X out of my cold dead hands... (And that's coming from a guy with $10K+ in digital camera gear...)

Looking for a list of companies that died by their

[Cutting_Crew]

own invention. So obviously we have Kodak. Anyone else? And if there is anyone else, is there a pattern?

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[NikeHerc]

Here's something that was lost: Kodak stopped making their wonderful Tech Pan B&W film. I would still be buying this stuff and developing and printing it myself if it were available. Together with Ilford paper, Tech Pan had great tonal range and no grain.

Adios, Kodak film products. We will miss you.

Re:My phone takes 90 mins of Hi-Def video. What do

[Anonymous Coward]

One minor point - Lens size matters. You're just not getting the same picture when you have a lens opening the size of a sesame seed compared to a quarter. I note a tendency for the mini camcorders to get smaller and smaller, with corresponding issues in picture quality.

mint?

[spongman]

making printers to stem falling profits

does this mean they're going to start printing money?

The digital revolution took my Kodachrome Away

[djl4570]

I shot many rolls of Kodachrome but was turned off by the processing and long turnaround after shooting some Fuji Crayola-chrome. It was faster than Kodachrome, processing was cheaper and faster. A friend of mine always resented not being able to get Kodachrome in 120 or 220 format. By the time it was offered he was married with children and his photography days were mostly behind him except for birthday and holiday parties. Kodak failed to adapt to the digital revolution in photography in the way that Minolta, Nikon and Canon did and the marketplace has made its choice.

Fall of an early tech company

[Anonymous Coward]

Its sad to see the end of this really great technology company. They made money offering people the 18th century version of 'instant painting', much like instant messaging is today. It wasn't so terribly instant (although what Polaroid did later was --within about 10 seconds-- instant). Their main revenue stream was replaced by something else. Its sad that the first company that had digital cameras --Kodak-- falls by other people making them. Not unlike Xerox and their line of *Graphical User Interface* computers, Hewlett Packard with their 1970's touch screen displays, etc. They couldn't diversify. They couldn't change. They couldn't or wouldn't adapt to the new reality. They hung on to the past, till the companies death. George Eastman died in 1932. Now 80 years later, the company is filing for bankruptcy. Compare that to Hewlett Packard. Dave Hewlett and David Packard have been gone for about a decade, and HP is starting to suck hard. Its not dead yet, but clearly going down. Sun's founders are all still alive (and Sun set two years ago --ok,ok, it will be two years in another 9 days--).

http://www.eastman.com/

[Anonymous Coward]

Link should be http://www.eastman.com/ without the period before the final slash.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Dishevel]

We lost that before bankruptcy protections.
They abandoned film quite awhile back.

3D Printing is going to be HUGE in the next years.

[Viewsonic]

I mean, it already is huge among the geek crowds. But the build process for these devices is becoming so cheap and affordable, they will be sold with every desktop and laptop in the coming years. Who doesn't want to design and print their own action figures for their kids? Who doesn't want to print out their favorite sports teams logo? Who doesn't want to prototype some new idea they have for literally nothing in costs? Who doesn't want to print out their own tabletop gaming figures instead of paying $13 a figure, you can print out a (properly licensed model) one out for a measly quarter.

Kodak could pounce on this market, make their own brand of plastics, their own printers, their own software, etc.

Mark my words, 3D printers is the "next big thing". Take a look at the makerbots and repraps. These things are insanely cheap for what they do, and the price keeps on dropping even more. Can you imagine how cheap they will be when a large company with a huge wallet buys parts bulk and refines them down to mere dollars per device in cost?

time just ran out

[pbjones]

been said a hundred times, people just stopped using the product that was the bread and butter of KODAK. They go the same way that thousands of other companies go that have unpopular products. Polaroid, Palm (it isn't the same company, it's just a name) etc. And KODAK had it's share of innovations that also passed into history, along with wide ties. 110 film, Disk cameras, KODAK instant picture cameras, who remembers them? Who sits and watches slides projected on a wall? I have all of these products, I love film, but I can buy a 12 Megapixel camera cheaper than 4 rolls of developed and printed film, sad. Yes, my current workday camera is a KODAK digital, and printer dock. I can't get consumables for the KODAK printer, and it isn't 4 years old.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[hairyfeet]

You had great taste sir. You see i tried telling folks there was just something about Kodachrome, it always as i put it 'lied beautifully' in that the colors were frankly often more vivid and deeper than IRL, for example grasses would often have a wonderful emerald green quality and blue skies really 'popped' for lack of a better word.

If Kodak would have put out a Kodachrome digital camera that automatically gave pictures that "Kodachrome color" so Joe and Sally Average could take pictures just as easily as with a digital but had those beautiful Kodachrome colors frankly they would still be here, but one bad management team after another killed any hope that company had of turning itself around. Sadly i agree that nothing of value was lost because it was lost long ago.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[DriedClexler]

Wow, what was it like trying to stockpile all the TPB&W film you could when you found out it was going to be discontinued?

I mean, you did do that, right?

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[NikeHerc]

Wow, what was it like trying to stockpile all the TPB&W film you could when you found out it was going to be discontinued?

I'm guessing you've never seen prints from Tech Pan film and you're just trolling. If I had found out about the discontinuance in time, I'd have stocked up on at least a dozen rolls. AFAIK, there is no equivalent of Tech Pan anywhere on planet earth.

Anybody want to buy a bit of left-over, factory fresh (circa 2003) Technidol developer? :)

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[DriedClexler]

So wait, you normally bought a lot of it because it was so good but you somehow didn't find out about the discontinuation in time to stockpile?

Re:My phone takes 90 mins of Hi-Def video. What do

[Anonymous Coward]

that say about home video recorders in the next, let's say, 5 years? All those hi-def video recorders at the big box stores...gone with the wind. i hope that companies get their heads out of the sand.

But is said camera's pictures really great compared to camcorders or a DSLR's? I have my doubts. I also think that they are crappy compared to film pictures, and I think that you are not knowledgeable about it, otherwise you'd be less impressed with that hunk of metal and plastic in your pocket and would be getting a DSLR with all of the bells and whistles instead, and be taking better pictures.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[Anonymous Coward]

I still buy (and have bought) Kodak film, mostly Tri-X and T-Max, and have taken great pictures with them:

My Black & White Photos 2011

Kodak still makes Ektarchrome and Portra, so your argument holds no water there.