Bill Gates' 5.2% Investment in Kodak

FilmIs4Ever · Feb 20, 2009

Woah, there are way too many geeks on here. Does everyone have a Vista joke for us to groan at?

Does everyone on APUG work in IT except me?

TheFlyingCamera · Feb 20, 2009

After trying to install Windows XP on my MacBook Pro (in a separate partition, thank you very much), I'm convinced that MS operating systems are merely a virus designed to waste infinite amounts of our time and make us buy an excess of add-on software to compensate for its shortcomings.

FilmIs4Ever · Feb 20, 2009

TheFlyingCamera said:
After trying to install Windows XP on my MacBook Pro (in a separate partition, thank you very much), I'm convinced that MS operating systems are merely a virus designed to waste infinite amounts of our time and make us buy an excess of add-on software to compensate for its shortcomings.

Like I was saying. . .:rolleyes:

AutumnJazz · Feb 20, 2009

To be perfectly honest, I think Apple makes much worse products than MS does. I think it all sucks though. Just use the tools that you need to get the job done in the best way possible. For me, sometimes it is Vista, or XP, or another form of Windoze, or Oh Sucks, or Loonics, or OpenBSD, or Solaris, or Debian, or...

TheFlyingCamera, how so? If you want some help, PM me. I've installed XP on many a MB(P) and OS X on many a Windows laptop.

On an on topic note, though, I see this as an immensely positive thing. More money for Kodak? That means more R&D (whether digital or film oriented), more products, and a healthier company that produces products that many of us love.

Ari, MS only makes as much money as it does because consumers don't know what they freaking want. And either way, they only have two options...Vista, or OS X, which are both spectacular failures of a desktop OS. So even if a consumer attempts to find a decent OS, if they can't install one themselves they're lost. That is, you have two options...Tie yourself down to Dell/HP/whomever and Microsoft, or tie yourself down to Apple. Both are unacceptable for me, so I build my own computers.

All corporations are bad. Apple is just as bad as Microsoft. They're massive multi-national corporations, their only goal is to make money. Mind you, I'm very anti corporation/monopoly, but this is the world we live in.

jd callow · Feb 20, 2009

Ken N said:
Given that "The Bill" has invested a significant portion of his piggy bank into Kodak tells me something about the future of Kodak. Bill is one extremely smart cookie and I think we need to wake up and smell the fixer. Kodak isn't going away. It has fingers reaching into some very disparate industries.

Now the rose is falling off of Canon's bloom, it may be time to see the rise of the companies with extremely long-term strategies.

Bill is very bright and I suspect the people who work for him are brighter still. If Gates is buying Kodak you can probably rest assured that kodak is not going anywhere soon. Whether you like their product or not, there is no denying that nobody can do whet MS has done without being well run.

Aurum · Feb 20, 2009

FilmIs4Ever said:
Woah, there are way too many geeks on here. Does everyone have a Vista joke for us to groan at?

Does everyone on APUG work in IT except me?

I'm reading this on a laptop underpowered by fista. It is a joke all by itself, but not a funny one

FilmIs4Ever · Feb 20, 2009

And the groans just keep on coming!

Aurum said:
I'm reading this on a laptop underpowered by fista. It is a joke all by itself, but not a funny one

Still groaning!

largeformat pat · Feb 20, 2009

As with windows I dare say that if the Kodak had to follow suit our equipment would have to upgraded every 2 years just to fit the film.

Michael W · Feb 20, 2009

Bill Gates bought a lot of Apple shares when they were extremely low & Apple was on the verge of oblivion. Needless to say Apple eventually made a big recovery & it paid off well for Bill. I'd say his investment in Kodak is either because he thinks the shares are undervalued or he is seeing some possible long term comeback for Kodak. Either way, confidence is a good thing.

accozzaglia · Feb 20, 2009

I see Kodak's imaging research, and Mr. Gates' interest in seeing that persist, behaving more like another old Rochester competitor: Xerox. It was in Xerox's PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) where many of the core usability features we see everywhere now originated there. But Xerox never successfully capitalized on marketing and merchandising these ideas the way other companies ended up doing. Apple was one of those. The GUI and mouse-pointer system don't originate from Apple's Lisa/Macintosh operating system, but from Xerox.

In the Gates interest, I think he does want to see companies with a history of innovation to continue, and his investment hopes to keep that going with the proviso that the investment will pay off for him. In this sense, Kodak really has gone the way of PARC: Bill wants the imaging technology to flourish, and it will probably do so -- just elsewhere, not from Kodak's products in particular. Kodak's predicament differs from, say, IBM, which changed much of their raison d'être in the 1990s to a notably more consultancy-based model rather than supplying, well, selling internationally their business machines. This is perhaps another way to persist after the model of business changes and threatens to render an industrial giant into a fossil graveyard.

And to AutumnJazz: the microkernel and base OS for Mac OS X is FreeBSD. On that merit, it's a tremendously less insecure platform than any variation of windows, XP 2003 Server Edition being an unusual exception to that mess.

AutumnJazz · Feb 20, 2009

goldie: Non-controlling shares at that. I also think he wanted to help the company that was founded by people who were, and probably still are, his friends.

accozzagila: I know that. In fact, I usually use it to put down OS X. "It has all of the insecurities of FreeBSD and next to none of its features." Not to mention its filesystem, and other issues...

Chazzy · Feb 21, 2009

AutumnJazz said:
goldie: Non-controlling shares at that. I also think he wanted to help the company that was founded by people who were, and probably still are, his friends.

accozzagila: I know that. In fact, I usually use it to put down OS X. "It has all of the insecurities of FreeBSD and next to none of its features." Not to mention its filesystem, and other issues...

He said LESS insecure, and it is.

Q.G. · Feb 21, 2009

So it is a faux pas to mention digital cameras here, it is frowned upon to mention scanners (which do need film, right), but this silliness about operating systems is allowed to run unchecked?

Time to change APUG's name to something else perhaps?

SamWeiss · Feb 21, 2009

fschifano said:
Kodak makes the sensors that go into an awful lot of digital cameras. They're no slouches when it comes to in-camera image processing software either. I see a connection there.

Kodak used to make (as in physically fabricate) sensors, but they sold off their fab and sensor making a few years back, if memory serves me correctly. They still do research and design, and they do still sell sensors (designed by them) - the specs you can get on their website. However, these tend to not be what you find in your usual digicam. Even the Kodak digicams are made by a joint venture or sourced from an OEM. The high volume digital sensors found in many brands of digicams are made by Sony, or Panasonic, etc.

What Kodak does have is a huge portfolio of imaging patents, including digital, and agreements with numerous companies who want to use what is protected by those patents. Perhaps Gates sees this as the plum that needs more picking?

Remember too that even during the Great Depression many companies were able to waddle through the economic morass and continue, or even grow. Today's stock prices, when plummeting, provide excellent investment opportunities for someone with lots of cash and an eye for companies whose stock is oversold.

bobwysiwyg · Feb 21, 2009

Today's stock prices, when plummeting, provide excellent investment opportunities for someone with lots of cash

And the willingness or guts to commit it.

alanrockwood · Feb 21, 2009

AutumnJazz said:
On an on topic note, though, I see this as an immensely positive thing. More money for Kodak? That means more R&D (whether digital or film oriented), more products, and a healthier company that produces products that many of us love.

Infortunately for Kodak if this was an ordinary stock transaction performed in the secondary market, the way the vast majority of stocks are traded, Kodak won't get the money. Instead, the money goes to the person who sold the shares. The only way for Kodak to get some of the money is if they were the person who sold some of the shares bought by Gates.

Usually the number of its own shares bought or sold by a company in the secondary market is only a very small fraction (if any) of the number of the company's shares traded in a given segment of time. Therefore, it is unlikely that Kodak received any direct financial benefit from the Gates purchase.

accozzaglia · Feb 21, 2009

Chazzy said:
He said LESS insecure, and it is.

She said less insecure, and having used OS X since it was in public beta (and MacOS since, hrm, 1990), I can rest assured that the HFS+ journalled file system is plenty stable.

Good god, people. Is it assumed by sexist default that only men hang out on APUG or something? This is, like, the fifth time in recent weeks I've watched this happen.

MattKing · Feb 21, 2009

accozzaglia said:
She said less insecure, and having used OS X since it was in public beta (and MacOS since, hrm, 1990), I can rest assured that the HFS+ journalled file system is plenty stable.

Good god, people. Is it assumed by sexist default that only men hang out on APUG or something? This is, like, the fifth time in recent weeks I've watched this happen.

In Charles' ("Chazzy"'s) defence, I expect he either didn't address his mind to your gender or, lacking data, just went with the statistics.

English probably needs a gender-neutral replacement term for "she or he" for those times when a "she" or a "he" would otherwise fit.

Just ask Claire Senft .

Thanks accozaglia for your contributions to APUG. If I ever find myself referring to you on APUG in a way where choosing the right gender will matter, I'll try to get it right.

Matt

accozzaglia · Feb 21, 2009

Just a brief follow-up:

I apologize to everyone. When what happened occurs once or twice, I mostly ignore it. I chalk it up to laziness for not using, say, one's name or username and instead slacking to pronouns for lazy shorthand. Even I'm guilty of said shorthand. But whenever I'm feeling any doubt, I just use their name, username, or I bother looking up their profile to see whether they make a distinction either way.

Like I said, I typically brush it off for the most part. But when something like this happens several times in short succession from separate people within the same setting, it does get tiresome and I feel it merits saying something to set the record straight. It suggests something else which isn't personal, but systemic. Not so much a matter of gender, but of subtle sexism. And that's so 20th century. Just sayin'.

(All hail broken alliteration.)

MattKing said:
In Charles' ("Chazzy"'s) defence, I expect he either didn't address his mind to your gender or, lacking data, just went with the statistics.

English probably needs a gender-neutral replacement term for "she or he" for those times when a "she" or a "he" would otherwise fit.

Just ask Claire Senft .

Thanks accozaglia for your contributions to APUG. If I ever find myself referring to you on APUG in a way where choosing the right gender will matter, I'll try to get it right.

Matt

donbga · Feb 22, 2009

JBrunner said:
I think of it as two different companies, and in some ways it is.

Eastman Kodak has been "multiple" companies for many years. I don't see a problem here.

kevs · Feb 23, 2009

Just to lighten the tone a little, here's a linky to a fabby Windoze filk I heard a few days ago:

http://www.poppyfields.net/filks/00275.html

FilmIs4Ever · Feb 23, 2009

accozzaglia said:
Just a brief follow-up:

I apologize to everyone. When what happened occurs once or twice, I mostly ignore it. I chalk it up to laziness for not using, say, one's name or username and instead slacking to pronouns for lazy shorthand. Even I'm guilty of said shorthand. But whenever I'm feeling any doubt, I just use their name, username, or I bother looking up their profile to see whether they make a distinction either way.

Like I said, I typically brush it off for the most part. But when something like this happens several times in short succession from separate people within the same setting, it does get tiresome and I feel it merits saying something to set the record straight. It suggests something else which isn't personal, but systemic. Not so much a matter of gender, but of subtle sexism. And that's so 20th century. Just sayin'.

(All hail broken alliteration.)

You could post a picture of yourself ;-)

In all seriousness, since 90% of photographers tend to be male, it is not that unusual of an assumption to be made. I don't get angry when people spell my name improperly, because I use the German version rather than the Swiss version of the spelling, and the Swiss version is about 80% of the usage in the USA.

Anyway, I'd hardly call a default male gender assumption on this site sexist, just as I wouldn't if I were a male nurse, male secretary, male flight attendant, or male school-teacher.

Lol. If you want to see real sexism, watch "Mad Men"!

lns · Feb 23, 2009

FilmIs4Ever said:
Anyway, I'd hardly call a default male gender assumption on this site sexist, just as I wouldn't if I were a male nurse, male secretary, male flight attendant, or male school-teacher...

Um, I assure you, you would.

You will not find any woman photographer of a certain age who has not had to deal with very open and demeaning gender bias. Maybe that's why some are sensitive to it.

QUOTE=FilmIs4Ever;757979]...
In all seriousness, since 90% of photographers tend to be male, it is not that unusual of an assumption to be made. ...[/QUOTE]

Really? Where do you get those statistics?

-Laura

MattKing · Feb 23, 2009

Laura (and accozzaglia):

I think there is a real difference between bias, and casual assumption. While I can understand how irritating it might be to experience the result of people assuming the male gender, without any information to base the assumption on, surely it is far worse when the assumptions made are incorrect and are based on knowledge of your gender.

Part of what I do as a lawyer is draft documents. I am always seeking ways to express things in a gender neutral way, because that tends to reduce the complexity of what you draft, and prevent future problems, but sometimes if you are trying to revise something that already exists, you just have to throw in the towel and choose one of the genders and go with it, supported by one of those wonderful lawyer clauses like:

"Where circumstances and context requires it, any reference in this *** to the singular is intended to include the plural, and any reference in this *** to the masculine is intended to include the feminine or a body corporate."

I guess I'm saying that if people get it right as soon as they learn that you are female, and wouldn't have intentionally got it wrong if they knew better, or had thought about it first, and if substantively your gender doesn't concern them, then they aren't the ones to worry about.

In the meantime, I'll keep working on trying not to assume, wherever possible.

On the statistics question, there is a thread on that very issue on APUG with a thread title something like:

"Are you male or female". I'll look to see if I can find the link.

Matt

PS: Okay I found it - it is a "Sticky" and here is the link:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

B&Wpositive · Feb 23, 2009

FilmIs4Ever said:
In all seriousness, since 90% of photographers tend to be male, it is not that unusual of an assumption to be made./QUOTE]

To Whom it may concern:

Hi, I'm B&Wpositive...

and here's my theory on life:

There are lies...
Damned lies......
And then.........
There are statistics! :rolleyes:

So, back to reality: I was trying to figure out how to write a gender-neutral greeting in a letter to Kodak to tell them why Kodachrome matters to me...and I wasn't sure for a while what to write. Dear Sirs sounded good initially, but then I was like, "That's damned sexist!" But then I had an epiphany:

"To Whom it may concern:"

Never fails. Everybody remember this one for next time.

Lest I turn into Mr. B&Wnegative (yes, Mr.)

Ok, maybe I've gone nuts...too many Dektol fumes :confused: What do you GUYS think?

(warning: mild sexism intended in jest (ingest?)! )

(Err, Stupid recursive double parenthesis keep coming up again! Yikes- I just realized that the word "parenthesis" looks a lot like "parent thesis"...so there's a thesis inside a thesis (a child thesis?), and that makes a parenthesis!)

(All right, now that I've apparently lost "it" totally (whatever "it" is, anyway...and I'm not so sure how to go about getting it back either at this point)...hopefully everyone feels better now (I would if it weren't for the used Dektol (thanks, PE for offering used Dektol in that other thread!)) now...back to the topic at hand...Kodak's stock market statistics (not enclosed in parenthesis) and who bought Kodak stock recently...)

Apug tiring...Need sleep...
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Bill Gates' 5.2% Investment in Kodak

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