Kodak Film - branded Kodak Alaris

[Xmas]

Hi Matt

thanks

Just before they filed chapt 11 they paid themselves a bonus...

If I'd been the judge I'd have sequestered a few estates... Of the higher management.

 

[MattKing]

Hi Matt

thanks

Just before they filed chapt 11 they paid themselves a bonus...

If I'd been the judge I'd have sequestered a few estates... Of the higher management.

The bankruptcy legislation allows a court to set aside transactions within a certain period of time before the declaration of bankruptcy.

But if the court did that, the ones who agreed to stay on would have quit, and most wouldn't have agreed to join the board. That would have left Eastman Kodak with no functioning management. That would have jeopardized the interest of the creditors.

Usually that power is exercised only when there is evidence of theft or fraud, not management that film users disagree with.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

But if the court did that, the ones who agreed to stay on would have quit, and most wouldn't have agreed to join the board. That would have left Eastman Kodak with no functioning management.

Umm... In retrospect, I'm not so sure that...



Ken

 

[Paul Verizzo]

Umm... In retrospect, I'm not so sure that...



Ken

Pretty standard procedure in large bankruptcies for top and mid level managers. The ship is sinking, why would they stay when they need to find new work. Answer: A big bonus for that offset.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Pretty standard procedure in large bankruptcies for top and mid level managers. The ship is sinking, why would they stay when they need to find new work. Answer: A big bonus for that offset.

You missed the implied irony...

Ken

 

[Paul Verizzo]

You missed the implied irony...

Ken

Apparently. I will start taking iron-y supplements.

 

[Xmas]

If I was a ltd company director I could/can only pay a divedend out of profit or go to jail...

There is sophistry in saying the company is going broke so you can have a bonus. If you can leave you get out quick.

If I take photos for a Inc company then invoice and get paid and they file ch 11 the court takes the money back from me... distributes it and gives me 10 cents on dollar.

Kodak were deep in brown Windsor soup.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

If I was a ltd company director I could/can only pay a divedend out of profit or go to jail...

There is sophistry in saying the company is going broke so you can have a bonus. If you can leave you get out quick.

If I take photos for a Inc company then invoice and get paid and they file ch 11 the court takes the money back from me... distributes it and gives me 10 cents on dollar.

Kodak were deep in brown Windsor soup.

Yes, bankruptcy law has a lot of unfairness and illogical ways. You have no money, but you hire a lawyer? And he gets first dibs of any assets?

Paying bonuses makes a lot of sense, however unfair it sounds. It allows an orderly exit or transition. If everyone who knew everything about how the company ran walked off of the job, there would be chaos. And in all likelihood, even more assets would be wasted trying to get a handle on the situation.

I'm going to guess that you made a funny w/o realizing it. I don't know what "Windsor soup" is, although I get the intimation. But did you know that Kodak papers were made in Windsor, Colorado, USA? Maybe 50 miles north of Denver. Other than Kodak, a rural town with nothing but farms and feedlots around it. Most of the employees lived in nearby Greeley, still not a big burg.

And here's a trivia for that factory: Because of all the minerals in the mountains to the west, the Cache la Poudre river actually has more silver in it that what the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) permits for discharge. So, Kodak actually had to make the water cleaner on exit than when it came in!

 

[AgX]

Great story about that river. But I got no proof of that.

 

[Paul Verizzo]

Great story about that river. But I got no proof of that.

I don't have a citation. Big sorry. A whole lot of items on here don't have citations. It's what I read somewhere when I lived in CO for over twenty years. And since there is a lot of silver in the mountains, including abandoned mine's leaching with rainfall, why not? It's perfectly probable.

 

[AgX]

As I said, a great story. I'm grateful to have learned about it

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

I don't have a citation. Big sorry. A whole lot of items on here don't have citations. It's what I read somewhere when I lived in CO for over twenty years. And since there is a lot of silver in the mountains, including abandoned mine's leaching with rainfall, why not? It's perfectly probable.

Probably not silver. More likely mercury.

Old-time mines (think 1880s) would process their gold/silver ore by crushing it and mixing it with mercury to create the gold amalgam, which was their primary production product. Heating the amalgam during the refining step allowed for later separation. Before the dangers were understood, excess mercury was often dumped directly into stream tributaries and rivers at the primary milling sites.

When I worked in Nevada many decades ago it was forbidden to eat fish caught from the Carson River, due to the high incidence of mercury poisoning downslope from the famous Virginia City/Gold Hill/Silver City Comstock Lode mining operations. The riverbed reportedly contained thin layers of the metal under the silt. It was so widespread that cleanup in the traditional sense was not an option.

"Mercury was once used throughout the world in gold processing. It was employed to assist with the extraction of gold and silver from ore. This process has since been replaced by more efficient and less environmentally damaging techniques such as cyanide leaching in large-scale and industrial mining." —miningfacts.org​

I would expect the same mercury-based extraction technology was contemporaneously employed everywhere in the Far West of the US at that time.

And as far as cyanide leaching being an improvement, that's only true in a relative sense. I've witnessed large-scale aerosol cyanide heap-leaching operations at work extracting gold. I've also seen the dead cattle and other wildlife scattered around the perimeter of these multi-acre islands of poison. Those carcasses were supposed to be reported to regulators, but often weren't.

Ken

 

[Paul Verizzo]

Probably not silver. More likely mercury.

Old-time mines (think 1880s) would process their gold/silver ore by crushing it and mixing it with mercury to create the gold amalgam, which was their primary production product. Heating the amalgam during the refining step allowed for later separation. Before the dangers were understood, excess mercury was often dumped directly into stream tributaries and rivers at the primary milling sites.

When I worked in Nevada many decades ago it was forbidden to eat fish caught from the Carson River, due to the high incidence of mercury poisoning downslope from the famous Virginia City/Gold Hill/Silver City Comstock Lode mining operations. The riverbed reportedly contained thin layers of the metal under the silt. It was so widespread that cleanup in the traditional sense was not an option.

"Mercury was once used throughout the world in gold processing. It was employed to assist with the extraction of gold and silver from ore. This process has since been replaced by more efficient and less environmentally damaging techniques such as cyanide leaching in large-scale and industrial mining." —miningfacts.org​

I would expect the same mercury-based extraction technology was contemporaneously employed everywhere in the Far West of the US at that time.

And as far as cyanide leaching being an improvement, that's only true in a relative sense. I've witnessed large-scale aerosol cyanide heap-leaching operations at work extracting gold. I've also seen the dead cattle and other wildlife scattered around the perimeter of these multi-acre islands of poison. Those carcasses were supposed to be reported to regulators, but often weren't.

Ken

You raise in interesting point. My imperfect knowledge says that the principle gold fields in Colorado were west of Colorado Springs (Pikes Peak, Cripple Creek, Victorville) and west of Denver, all the way up Clear Creek, then to the north at Blackhawk and Central City. I don't recall much gold mining history north of that, which includes the St. Vrain, Big Thompson, and Cache la Poudre watersheds.

Never heard of fish eating bans due to mercury, nor EPA cleanups. Cripple Creek has the last gold mine in Colorado, a huge open pit mine.

But again, I'm not an expert on these matters, just kind of what rubbed off living there for 23 years.

 

[Xmas]

http://www.food.com/recipe/queen-victorias-brown-windsor-soup-391231

I was not being rude.
It is an archiec expression.

Gene could have confirmed Mercury was dangerous
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Eugene_Smith

 

[Ektagraphic]

I called Kodak Alaris today to ask questions relating to their products, and they basically told me that there is no support available. The fellow mentioned that I could send an email and it may get to a person who knew about film. When he asked what I wanted to know, he told me he just googled to find an answer. I think it would be helpful if you could talk to someone with product questions!

 

[Paul Verizzo]

I called Kodak Alaris today to ask questions relating to their products, and they basically told me that there is no support available. The fellow mentioned that I could send an email and it may get to a person who knew about film. When he asked what I wanted to know, he told me he just googled to find an answer. I think it would be helpful if you could talk to someone with product questions!

Welcome to modern No Customer Service.

ca. 1966 I was setting up a small business involving car service. I had a number of correspondences with Castrol, USA about their products. I asked questions, they responded with answers that indicated they actually read and comprehended my questions. This was a whole, short series of inquiries.

Dead as the old Dodo Bird.

 

[MattKing]

Welcome to modern No Customer Service.

ca. 1966 I was setting up a small business involving car service. I had a number of correspondences with Castrol, USA about their products. I asked questions, they responded with answers that indicated they actually read and comprehended my questions. This was a whole, short series of inquiries.

Dead as the old Dodo Bird.

That high quality service of the past cost a lot of money to provide. The money was available then, because the profit margins were generous, and there were good economies of scale available to the manufacturer.

Kodak was essentially forced out of most of the photographic business because the economies of scale disappeared, and the profit margins were squeezed. Their internal culture and systems weren't flexible enough to enable them to adapt - to either become a low price, low service large market success, or a high price, high service niche market success.

 

[NB23]

I remember a time, about 20 years ago, when I was in my darkroom and I needed a clear answer about mixing Kodak products and developing times, or how to bleach a given paper, fixer capacity, what time to develop a film at 16c or 28c, anything... A quick 1-800-Kodak call and I'd get all my answers. That was incredible.

 

[railwayman3]

That high quality service of the past cost a lot of money to provide. The money was available then, because the profit margins were generous, and there were good economies of scale available to the manufacturer.

As you say, expensive in real terms, but probably not in relation to the profits available then. The goodwill created by a good customer service was probably more effective than random advertising, and the cost just part of the overall advertising and P.R. budget.

I can certainly remember the excellent brochures produced by Kodak on every aspect of photography, and the free personal and recorded lecture services provided to Camera Clubs in the UK. I can also remember as a schoolboy writing and researching "topics" for homework, that a letter to almost any big company would produce a large envelope of brochures and information relating to their activities. Guess kids have Google now, but not, I think, as much fun as waiting for the excitement of an envelope arriving in the post.

 

[Xmas]

That high quality service of the past cost a lot of money to provide. The money was available then, because the profit margins were generous, and there were good economies of scale available to the manufacturer.

Kodak was essentially forced out of most of the photographic business because the economies of scale disappeared, and the profit margins were squeezed. Their internal culture and systems weren't flexible enough to enable them to adapt - to either become a low price, low service large market success, or a high price, high service niche market success.

Fuji did a lot of damage to margins
Patent violation crippled

They were incompetent management.

They bought Nagels factory, but ignored Lands, Canons & Nikons factories.

 

[AgX]

[Kodak] bought Nagels factory, but ignored Lands, Canons & Nikons factories.

Kodak bought Nagel when Land did not even dream of his inventions and the japanese manufacturers were not even making cameras yet.

Agfa too got into possesion of a camera plant, even earlier. They made losses with it for many, many years.
Finally they closed the huge plant, setting off 3,500 people. One of the largest, if not the largest, lay offs in that time.

Thus things are not that easy as just buying anything up in time.


Both Kodak and Agfa used their cameraplants mainly to produce for a mass market, thus cranking up film sales. (I left aside the professional machinery built too. And some higher end cameras.)

Going for more refined cameras as the japanese camera manufacturers later did, would mean investing into a quite different sector. Though still technically and marketwise related to their photo businesses.)

Do not overlook that both Kodak and Agfa already were busy in industrial sectors not related to photography at all, but only technically to their original plants.


At the moment we are in a phase where all those big concerns are desintigrating into many independent entities. See as example Bayer.

 

[MDR]

Not to forget they also bought Folmer and Schwing better known as Graflex and later sold the Company. But for a time Kodak was the premiere US camera mfg.

 

[Xmas]

Kodak bought the Verichrome factory...

Nagel's factory made a profit in the '30s... It was bought at correct time, you sell before it makes a loss.

Land offered his patents and processes to Kodak they should have bought about 1950.

They should have bought Canon and Nikon before '55.

The 'people' who bought the Leverkusen factory asset stripped it just in time.

I only left companies collecting redundancy or just before the factory closed, redundancy £ was tax free up to a threshold.

 

[Xmas]

For people read 'lizards'?

Land levered German patents just post WWII he was good at innovation Kodak needed him not just his process.

Kodak needed George Eastmann when he died they started down hill.

 

[AgX]

Nagel's factory made a profit in the '30s... It was bought at correct time, you sell before it makes a loss.

As I hinted at for the Agfa case, these plants were intended for the film market and could be subsidized by it. When losses became unbearable the plants had lost their value to investors long before (the issue of german camera industry being behind).