Goodbye to Kodak papers

There is an article in this week's Amateur Photographer that says that Kodak have ended production of all B&W papers. It might be good news for our local economy, as Ilford's factory is just round the corner, but bad news elsewhere.

David.

AP's a bit backward with its news.

There's threads about it on the forum, under Product availablity which are over two weeks old.

In the spirit of keeping up with breaking news ( ) Kodak has also announced the end of production of DSLR's... new CEO, new focus. We shall see.

So, what are they are going to focus in now?
Genetically engineered milk?

So, what does that leave for them?

I'm paraphrasing from Diane Berkenfeld in PTN:
Kodak is currently #1 in consumer (meaning non-pro, p/s type) digital camera sales in US; #3 worldwide. Kodak will concentrate on the consumer since it was never well accepted by pros. Their Image Sensor Solutions Division will continue to develop sensors for cameras and other imaging sciences markets.

Robert Hall said:

So, what does that leave for them?

Click to expand...

Within the last year Kodak introduced an eight hundred
speed X Ray film; double the previous four. About two years
ago they did the same for one of their cine films. Perhaps
those two segments of the industry are not infected
with the "Wal-Mart" virous; always the low price ...

Agfa holds the patents for the new much higher speed
emulsion technology. Those high speed emulsions are
slow making it to market. Dan

thedarkroomstudios said:

I'm paraphrasing from Diane Berkenfeld in PTN:
Kodak is currently #1 in consumer (meaning non-pro, p/s type) digital camera sales in US; #3 worldwide. Kodak will concentrate on the consumer since it was never well accepted by pros. Their Image Sensor Solutions Division will continue to develop sensors for cameras and other imaging sciences markets.

Click to expand...

Which includes medical applications, both actual imaging and software systems. They recently sold off the remote imaging division (satellite imaging) to ITT. Housed in the Hawkeye building on St. Paul Blvd., I have two friends who work there.

Earl

Kodak won a $1 billion dollar lawsuit against sun microsystems a few months ago for something to do with Java...maybe they're refocusing their business on issuing lawsuits instead of making paper or cameras

Dead Link Removed

I can see a future where Kodak spins off the Eastman Motion Picture film division, and also the medical imaging division. Those are profitable for now.
"Kodak" is going to concentrate on really crappy consumer digital cameras. They assume their current lead in that market will continue. Of course it will not. They'll continue to kill film under the current CEO. I believe his intention is to boost short term profits so he can sell Kodak to a bigger mulitnational concern, and get a nice fat golden parachute for himself. In less than 10 years, you'll see the "Kodak" brand name disappear, as well as all those good jobs in Rochester N.Y.
Such is the business climate in the new millenium. I'll keep buying Ilford, Efke, Foma, and others who care about the little guy.

If you were to go to Rochester I think you'd find most of the Kodak jobs have long gone.

When I was last in Rochester I was told the figures, that was 19 months ago and there's even fewer now. But don't under estimate Kodak they are still a major multi-national corporation, perhaps though they should look hard at how they lost markets to Fuji so quickly.

Reasons are easy extremely cash rich company, but why have they made so many mistakes over the years.

Most have been film formats and the plain fact that the cameras were so small & light that they couldn't be used in anything other than bright light or flash because of camera shake.

However their disasters needed better films so we got C41 (+E6) then Tgrain technology, but Fuji caught up instantly.

Surprisingly here in the UK Kodak B&W papers have been extremely badly marketed and very difficult to buy consistently, so much so that I can't remember seeing them on a dealers shelf in the last 20 years.

So the reason to be surprised is Kodak has big research facilities here, and many of the new advances in film & emulsion technology came from them.

I guess they thought & actually had the market domination to just ride on their trade name.

2005 is reality

Ian

Ian: I live in Rochester, though I am not a native. My father-in-law is retired form Kodak, and I would suppose if I walked my street I could talk to any number of people who either work for, are retired form, or took a "package' recently. You are quite right, the number of EK employees here is down significantly. One-third of their local real estate is being sold off.

Kodak's problems were one of corporate culture. A vast, multi-layered middle management class built up during the fat years. To get ahead, you basically had to emulate your superiors; fresh, contrarian, out-of-the-box thinking got you nowhere. Until recently, shake-ups meant moving non-producing management to a different department. With that lack of vision and inattention to quality (remember the first introduction of Polycontrast RC, the announcement of the discontinuation of Tri-X, the dropping of K25, etc.?) the company was ripe for its market to be stolen in pieces.

You are quite right that they are still a giant company, and I think current top management is far more perceptive and visionary. I think they are reinventing themselves and their current rebound in the consumer digital imaging sector is a positive sign. But I don't look for them to be a major force in professional digital markets other than as an OEM of sensors (there is a lot of talent here for that,) perhaps for printing materials, and perhaps in commercial imaging sectors such as medicine and high-end production printing.

I hope they do well. I do not intend to stay in Rochester forever, but their importance to this community is undeniable.

Earl

Surprisingly here in the UK Kodak B&W papers have been extremely badly marketed and very difficult to buy consistently, so much so that I can't remember seeing them on a dealers shelf in the last 20 years.

So the reason to be surprised is Kodak has big research facilities here, and many of the new advances in film & emulsion technology came from them.

I guess they thought & actually had the market domination to just ride on their trade name.

2005 is reality

Ian[/QUOTE]

I agree with the poor marketing of Kodak products in the UK, the range of Kodak B&W chemicals is one example, back in the 1970`s, Kodak D-163 was a very popular print developer which was sold as a dry powder to be made to a stock solution and diluted 1+3, or as a liquid concentrate to be diluted 1+9.
Both were discontinued, I beleive that Kodak Selectol is a modified version of D-163 and Dektol to be a modified version of D-72 along with Selectol-Soft being a modified version of D-165. Each of these formulas are deservedly popular with photographers who like to make their own developers from the basic components, yet I don`t recall Kodak advertising their excellent packaged print developers in the UK.
Walk into a branch of Jessops or London Camera Exchange and ask for Ilford Multigrade developer and the shop assistant may know the product mentioned, ask for Dektol or Selectol and the assistant may have a very puzzled expression.