But then he is no longer a "customer" for the original item.
If I don't buy any of Kodak's products, I'm not a Kodak customer.
Absolutely....in my Dad's time the equivalent products would have been made here in the UK, or possibly imported from Europe. The question of why this change has happened could fill dozens of books and journals....
They would be extremely short books though: the production of all of those items moved to China, because manufacturing them there is/was dirt cheap.
End of chapter. And of book.
Of course not, no. But a customer still.
Indeed. But what of it?
The thing is that there were too few Kodachrome buyers among Kodak's customers.
"For boutique production, a micro brewery of film so to speak"
For boutique production I don't think you need two lines. After all, there's not enough demand to support two lines. Microbreweries don't have two kettles.
Would it be expensive? You bet your sweet bippie. But wasn't there a comment that a roll in 1960 was equivalent to $74 in 2010 dollars? So if you can stay at about $65/roll you're still ahead of that.
One coating line for 18 in strips will let one slit 12 35mm strips or 7 120 strips with adequate edge guard bands.
I really doubt 8 folks working full time could have a master roll in one year. That seems a little aggressive. Perhaps two years.
With people complaining that film is going to $10/roll, this seems unsustainable.
BTW, I once attended a talk by the head of the Kodak camera plant and he said that Kodak could (at that time - in the 80s) make lenses and cameras better than anyone in the world, but no one except the government could afford them. His evidence were the special cameras used for space work at the time (not the Hasselblads used for "snapshots") such as space reconnaissance.
PE
Not quite....but I'll accept "The thing is that there were too few Kodachrome buyers among film consumers".
I'll also grant that E6 initially gave many advantages, quick processing in local labs or by the user, and a variety of speeds (though the faster Ektachromes have vanished) and choices of contrast and color rendering (e.g. Velvia, etc.).
At the risk of being boring, though, it's still back to marketing, even Fuji stole a lot of Kodak's slide market when they first came into the arena, with, arguably, inferior products (or, maybe, "less good", for the time) riding on a lot of Kodak's original R & D plus some savvy marketing.
You cannot tie up the production machine to make test coatings!
And, microbreweries do not make full size batches of experiments.
The price of the film I referred to was $10 / roll, processing included in South East Asia. I made it clear that US prices were substantially lower.
Kodachrome 25 died because it could not be produced on the new machine without excessive waste and the market would not support the R&D to fix the problem, so it would have had to be sold at a loss due to the waste. TerryM mentioned this earlier.
PE
But K64 could. So the market was favouring the 64 type?
Nah...
And as good as, and even better 'quality'.
Why! we have to wait and see if any film will survive the almost complete transition to the Digido! Doesn't look good.
Without defining the purpose, there isn't an answer.
Definitions are for people who don't know anything.
Considering the company we're in, the definition is superfluous, the meaning to be considered known and understood.
Not doubting what you say.
Are the Chinese suppliers responsive to feedback, and is the quality improving with time?
Not making any point, just interested, having regard to the similar position when Japan started exporting goods in any quantity in the 50's and 60's. At first "Made in Japan" largely denoted cheap inferior products ("Japc**p") , but manufacturers listened to feedback and gradually the scene changed completely.
IMVHO, this might not happen as quickly with China...could be that the Japanese manufacturers back then had a longer-term ambition and goal to "be the best", whereas the present outlook in the newer far-East countries may be more orientated to maximising short-term returns and profits.
China probably produces the same percentage of bad products as every other country.
Are the Chinese suppliers responsive to feedback, and is the quality improving with time?
Not making any point, just interested, having regard to the similar position when Japan started exporting goods in any quantity in the 50's and 60's. At first "Made in Japan" largely denoted cheap inferior products ("Japc**p") , but manufacturers listened to feedback and gradually the scene changed completely.
IMVHO, this might not happen as quickly with China...could be that the Japanese manufacturers back then had a longer-term ambition and goal to "be the best", whereas the present outlook in the newer far-East countries may be more orientated to maximising short-term returns and profits.
And if you were taking the Kodak tour around lunchtime about a dozen Photo Engineers walked through the lobby and past the visitors and not one person in the crowds ever asked any of us a question.
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