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Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

cnn.com

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Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

#211

Post by notfromhere »

glimshe wrote: post #89
alephnerd wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever been to Folsom, Chandler, Olathe, Huntsville, Quad Cities, Peoria, Irvine, San Diego, North Chicago, East Liberty, Taylor, etc? We have seen a decrease in companies that work on physical engineering goods, but plenty still remain. The difference is, engineering physical goods has been increasingly automated and skilled for decades now (robotic manufacturing, additive manufacturing, CAD tooling, etc has been a th…

I lived in one of these cities. I don't even understand what you're arguing against. The US has highly automated manufacturing because that's what makes sense with the current incentives. Other parts of the world still have factory cities. The US can align incentives to encourage different types of manufacturing of if it wants. I didn't say anything about whether it's a good idea.

US has highly automated manufacturing but only in a few industries where they're still competitive or have trade protections.

Though I feel like generally the narrative being spun for folks is that factory jobs largely got automated, which is true only in the fact that the remaining factory jobs got automated. The vast majority of them went overseas because it was cheaper. Otherwise the country wouldn't be filled with rusting factory towns and you'd still be able to find lots of household goods made in the US.

Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

#212

Post by pavon »

mvgoogler wrote: post #113
fallinditch wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, very sad - I really hope they carry on making camera films. This is what we would lose: https://thedarkroom.com/film-brand/kodak

Kodak film products are (confusingly) handled by Kodak-Alaris, which is a separate company that spun out of Eastman Kodak around 2012-ish and shares the Kodak brand with Eastman Kodak. Despite the similar names they are entirely separate companies, AFAIK. My team did an integration with Kodak-Alaris a few years back and we toured their main office in Rochester. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodak_Alaris

The way Wikipedia describes it, Eastman Kodak is still the one manufacturing the film, and Kodak Alaris is just selling it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodak#Still_film

Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

#213

Post by busterarm »

cloudbonsai wrote: post #138
jspann wrote: post #97

Maybe 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…

> I'd love to be corrected if I'm misreading this, but the reports of Kodak's death seem greatly exaggerated The basic background here is that Kodak has been pivotting at least for last 40 years. - 1980s: Kodak tried to become a Chemical magnate. This strategy was abandoned in 1990s. - 1990s: Kodak tried to become a Digital Imaging company. While it saw a brief success, Kodak lost the competition. - 2000s: Kodak trie…

> - 2000s: Kodak tried to become an Inkjet Printer company, which was doomed and eventually pushed it into bankruptcy.

Those were actually dye sublimation thermal printers and...they still sell them!

Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

#214

Post by jeffwask »

mark-r wrote: post #184

To be honest, I thought they were already completely gone. The article mentions them filing for bankruptcy in 2012. They were pretty much doomed from the start. They had built their business by taking a cut from every picture you took, from the rolls of film to the developing to the printing. There was absolutely nothing in the digital camera realm that could duplicate that; their revenue dropped like a rock. If they…

Yeah, they famously missed the boat on Digital Cameras when they held one of the earliest patents but decided to not produce and sell them due to the impact to the film side of the business but like you say even if they hadn't made that error, digital cameras were replaced in 10-15 years by smart phones anyway so it would have only been a temporary reprieve.

Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

#215

Post by exasperaited »

actionfromafar wrote: post #179
exasperaited wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe that Kodak’s missed opportunity was in not realizing the social sharing potential of digital photography. They were screwed long before capitalising on this was a real possibility. The damage was done to Kodak before the vast majority of consumers had fast enough broadband to share more than a couple of photographs a day. Kodak was an obviously cheesy, out-of-touch, cheap-looking digital brand by 2000, an…

The year 2000 Canon was also the year 2000 Kodak: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_EOS_D2000

I was talking about compact cameras there, because realistically that is all almost anyone was buying, even in corporate environments.

I think they sold in the low thousands of that DSLR (since it was a $15K camera). And the state of these partnership cameras was such that it was obvious they were something of a bridge to nowhere. Anyone could see that once Canon and Nikon began making their own things, Kodak would have trouble carrying on with their remodelled cameras.

Nikon had already shipped their first "conventional" in-house DSLR by then, and it was blowing people away.

Kodak should arguably have bought Sigma around then, but they didn't. They continued making these reworked/hybrid Canon/Nikon things until 2004 but when they quit making DSLRs they said the sector had "poor profitability". In 2005! Even Nikon was making a profit in 2005.

Back to the compact cameras:

This is the higher-end compact camera Canon shipped in 2000 (that all the real estate photographers were using):

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canong1

This is its Nikon competition, which was an incredible camera widely used in professional settings; they turned up in labs attached to microscopes, in rapid newspaper repro, in museums, web development agencies, all over the place:

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikoncp990

Sony, Fuji and Olympus had great kit in this segment already. Kodak really just had nothing even close as far as enthusiasts and early adopters were concerned.

Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

#216

Post by kkaske »

guerrilla wrote: post #205

Hey uhh have you guys seen this? "Media reports that Kodak is ceasing operations, going out of business, or filing for bankruptcy are inaccurate and reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of a recent technical disclosure the Company made to the SEC in its recently filed second quarter earnings report. These articles are misleading and missing critical context, and we'd like to set the record straight." https://www.ko…

I feel like journalism used to be considered a higher calling. Getting things right was very important. Maybe I’m misremembering, or maybe the internet has just drowned real journalism in a sea of clickbait headlines.

Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

#217

Post by cm2187 »

brianwawok wrote: post #191
cm2187 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first digital camera was a Kodak camera in 2001. Not saying that crypto was the right decision, but digital cameras definitely were. It seems they were self-conscious, but incapable of executing.

Is that a surprise? A chemical company doesn't have the in house chops to build a tech hardware? Same things happens all over. Ford (a car company) completely failing to make a reasonable UI / App / Interface for their infotainment systems (something a tech company would do). Pivoting away from what you are good at is hard for a 3 person startup, but nearly impossible for a giant corporation.

Well they had a good start, I don't think the early Kodak digital cameras were particularly bad, and they were rather cheap. But it looks like they didn't build on it.

Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

#218

Post by seanhunter »

vkou wrote: post #153
seanhunter wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

> give the world the first digital camera... mismanagement on a gargantuan scale 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 consol…

Obviously not, but Wright and Kenbak weren't dominant in their markets and Bell was broken up by the courts, so those are pretty poor examples you've chosen there.

Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

#219

Post by alistairSH »

vile_wretch wrote: post #200
kalleboo wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet right now they’re back to chemical photography film being over 50% of their revenue due to the breakout success of the instax instant cameras. Being able to charge a dollar per photo remains an unbeatable business to be in.

Kodak isn't far off from $1/shot retail for some of their film stocks.

Portra 400 is ~$0.50/shot (35mm, 36 exp roll). 160 and 800 are in the same ballpark.

What film stock are you seeing that's $1/shot?

Re: Kodak says it might have to cease operations [updated]

#220

Post by pyinstallwoes »

kkaske wrote: post #216
guerrilla wrote: post #205

Hey uhh have you guys seen this? "Media reports that Kodak is ceasing operations, going out of business, or filing for bankruptcy are inaccurate and reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of a recent technical disclosure the Company made to the SEC in its recently filed second quarter earnings report. These articles are misleading and missing critical context, and we'd like to set the record straight." https://www.ko…

I feel like journalism used to be considered a higher calling. Getting things right was very important. Maybe I’m misremembering, or maybe the internet has just drowned real journalism in a sea of clickbait headlines.

It certainly feels like there is no journalism in our zeitgeist. It’s been replaced by propaganda, and sensationalism.
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