Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would hardly describe a brand licensing agreement as a pivot of the company. A true pivot of Kodak was moving from just doing chemicals for film to doing chemicals for the pharmaceutical industry. That actually involved employees changing what they do, changing factory equipment, etc.
They did do more than just chemicals for film, but then decided to spin off the business so that they could focus on the film business: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_Chemical_Company One really must admire their determination to throw all of the life boats overboard to go down with the film ship. Every time they have a chance to save themselves if they move away from a single minded focus on film, they discar…
Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]
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Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]
#152Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]
#153It’s sad to see. As I understand it, digital photography forced camera companies to decide if they were principally about film or about photos and imaging. The competition in the image space was brutal, which phones winning the mass market by a huge margin. Those that quietly moved into recondite but valuable areas of technical specialisation did much better, but they’re not camera companies anymore.
Kodak give the world the first digital camera[1]. It took mismanagement on a gargantuan scale for them to fail in this manner. [1] https://www.kodak.com/en/company/page/photography-history/
Which why we're all flying on Wright airplanes, using Kenbak Personal Computers, and are all calling eachother with Bell telephones.
Being first to a market and not winning, or not even surviving isn't 'mismanagement on a gargantuan scale'. Especially when it comes to consumer devices, which have no moat or potential for monopoly consolidation.
-Sent from my BlackBerry(tm)
Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
And then shelved it, fearing that it would cannibalise their film sales
And then was a leader in digital sensors. But film sales collapsed basically overnight, not in a slower slope as projected. Kodak mgmt wasn't crazy or anything like that.
More to the point, the sales of Kodak Photo CD many years earlier should have tipped them off to what would happen once a small, cheap-enough digital camera met the broad quality of the lowest resolution photo CD scan (or even approached it, given how bad most people's photos are and how digital cameras made better photography easier for everyone). And given how they were doing the R&D, they should have known what was coming. Not just people not buying film, but people not really paying for prints, which is a double-whammy.
Kodak management wasn't crazy but it was entitled, boorish, inept and lazy. A classic late-stage US company. They were overconfident about their reputation and their essential status (just like Intel). At best, perhaps they were just too self-absorbed to be able to dispassionately react to what was happening.
The problem is that digital required a different approach to profit because the revenue and profit was lumpier.
As a result Kodak's biggest problem is that they could not possibly have pivoted even late on, because their line of digital products was a total pile of exploitative shit over the long term, that offered intermediate, semi-pro and pro users nothing at all of value and was already reviewing rather badly.
People outside the USA simply didn't buy Kodak digital cameras because we didn't hold Kodak in the same regard, and there were so many other choices.
Kodak also overstretched itself repeatedly in international markets, including a hilariously stupid late-era buyout of a competitor's high street lab chain in the UK so there were times when really small towns had two tiny, lacklustre Kodak stores when they barely needed one.
Fujifilm did better (by planning both good digital cameras and a transition to the well-marketed Instax and digital Crystal Archive printing as well as building ancilliary businesses). Heck, even Ilford hung on for longer, to the extent that their business produced better consumer inkjet materials than anyone else. When they were finally restructured in administration they had made the film business lean enough to survive into a management buyout.
Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]
#155Maybe I'm reading the headlines wrong, but it doesn't seem like a lot of people read the actual press release and earnings report from the August 11th, 2025[1]: 1) The "Going Concern Assessment" that they put out was a regulatory requirement because they didn't have full control of the sale of parts of the pension. They say in the release that they're going to have the sale finalized on December 15th, with details on…
Even though the company is paying them, the accountant is saying "whelp, doesn't look like a sure thing to me!"
Their pension fund has assets outstripping its liabilities and they can essentially wind up the fund. Great! Except if the fund's assets suddenly drop in value (e.g. when interest rates go up, and their bonds mark to market value drops, or if the stock market crashes) or if the price of those annuities to be bought goes up (e.g. when interest rates go down, and you need to reserve more money now for payments later). Interest rates dropping is perhaps not inconceivable, with a president tweeting every week about firing the chairman of the Fed if rates aren't dropped? A stock market crash, however short term, is also not inconceivable, especially with so much of the index concentrated in a few tech stocks.
A "going concern" statement like this is worth more that the company's press release disagreeing with it.
Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
And then shelved it, fearing that it would cannibalise their film sales
And then was a leader in digital sensors. But film sales collapsed basically overnight, not in a slower slope as projected. Kodak mgmt wasn't crazy or anything like that.
Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]
#157Maybe I'm reading the headlines wrong, but it doesn't seem like a lot of people read the actual press release and earnings report from the August 11th, 2025[1]: 1) The "Going Concern Assessment" that they put out was a regulatory requirement because they didn't have full control of the sale of parts of the pension. They say in the release that they're going to have the sale finalized on December 15th, with details on…
The regulatory requirement is there for a reason. Whenever you see a statement like that it means that the accountant they hired is covering their ass so they don't get sued if the company DOES go bankrupt. Even though the company is paying them, the accountant is saying "whelp, doesn't look like a sure thing to me!" Their pension fund has assets outstripping its liabilities and they can essentially wind up the fund.…
Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]
#158Interesting to compare the tech companies of last century with those of this era. Kodak employed a whole town, and many more people besides. We're now waiting on a one-person unicorn. The number of people benefiting from an enterprise has shrunk considerably, with the benefits accruing more tightly within an already wealthy class.
> Interesting to compare the tech companies of last century with those of this era. The 'tech companies' (equivalent) of the past tended to deal with physical goods, and so needed physical means of scaling to become as large as they did. More recent tech companies are often software goods and services, where physical means of scaling may not be as important (though see perhaps with Moore and Dennard). Though those wh…
(They both happen to be Quaker I believe, but I mean the point more generally.)
Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]
#159Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
And then was a leader in digital sensors. But film sales collapsed basically overnight, not in a slower slope as projected. Kodak mgmt wasn't crazy or anything like that.
Film sales didn't collapse "overnight" in any way -- it should have been easily predictable and their sales of crappy, creaky plastic digital compacts and printers should have told them. If that rubbish was selling, film was doomed. More to the point, the sales of Kodak Photo CD many years earlier should have tipped them off to what would happen once a small, cheap-enough digital camera met the broad quality of the l…