At this point the best thing Kodak could do would be to file and reorganize. Yet IF they do it right, Kodak will be around another 100 years. With bankruptcy contracts can be redone by the courts and debts that are impossible can be restructured to give the company a chance to succeed. Almost every company that size develops a bureaucracy that will be done. It needs to be much smaller, even tiny to one day be big again.
First they need new management. Several times Kodak has had products that had great potential that it never really quite full filled. I remember when Kodak came out with the pro 14 mp DLSR's that you could get in either a Canon or Nikon mount. HUGE potential, but it never really lived up to it. They have to decide just what part of the photo industry to they wish to explore.
They shouldn't totally ditch film. It will never be a mass market type of product again any more than polorids will become the instant camera of choice again. Yet that does not mean it can be a profit center, its just more of a niche than the massive consumer product it was in the past. Production will have to be scaled down to a level that makes sense in the current market and plants optimized for that level. At this point if I were looking at this problem, those jobs would wind up overseas as EPA regs and labor costs likely make US production impossible to be profitable. Trying to spread those cost over small film and paper runs would make turning a profit difficult.
The Kodak name still has great value. One thing I will always be grateful for from Kodak is their willingness to take a phone call and answer a question. The 800 number was usually answered promptly an with people that seemed to know their stuff. So few companies these days understand the importance.
If and when Kodak is a DOW stock again, it will be a very different company. I can think of several ways it could happen (ok Kodak board IF you read this give me a call and I will make myself available for stock of the new company) but selling patents isn't going to solve the problem.
I hope they can figure it out.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Kodak Bankruptcy???
From: David Dyer-Bennet <dd-b@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, January 06, 2012 10:10 pm
To: List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students
<photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On 2012-01-06 21:41, James Schenken wrote:
> It seems that Kodak is trying to sell off all of their digital intellectual property to try to survive.
> That sounds like eating the future to be fed today.
It's classic behavior. It makes financial sense, but it's insane from
an engineering point of view. To have a viable future, I think Kodak
needs a solution that's sound *both* financially *and* from an
engineering point of view.
> If Kodak goes down, does that push film towards the final edge?
Not especially.
Let me take a somewhat contrarian view here for a minute. Arguably, the
film and processing market is currently severely over-served, or at
least we can anticipate that it will be soon. Kodak, being one of the
biggest and oldest players, has more wiggle-room than most. One of the
worst things that could happen is that somebody like Kodak used that
wiggle room to hang on while everybody else died -- and then found they
couldn't operate at the size they were comfortable at either. THEN the
whole market goes bust.
In other words, perhaps clearing out one of the dinosaurs is one of the
best things that could happen to the remaining film market.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b@xxxxxxxx; http://dd-b.net/
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