So what exactly should Kodak have done?

[Photo Engineer]

That would be like Thomas Edison losing interest in and deciding to walk away from light bulbs at the very moment the first national electrical grid was originally switched on...

Ken

Well, that is what Edison essentially did. In the face of overwhelming evidence, he kept pushing DC when AC was proving to be far superior for the transmission of electricity. He became extremely rabid over promoting DC vs AC and of course, he lost the battle.

His work on the light bulb and other work saved him to a certain extent.

PE

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Edison did not labor through the testing of 1,600+ filament candidates before finding one that worked because he had lost faith in his core engineering competency, or the potential of his idea. And he never attempted to bury that idea in favor of the continued widespread use of candles.



Ken

 

[benjiboy]

No, you wouldn't be. Implicit in the question "So what exactly should Kodak have done?" is "in order to survive/thrive long term." That's what I and others who've posted responses intended our answers to address. However, "top business consultants" have no such intentions.

The huge corporate entities that hire "top business consultants" are seeking ways to accomplish two things. First, look good to "Wall Street." Second, make use of that "next-quarter potential/promise" to pump the stock price and maximize executive compensation packages. Nothing else matters. All assets and personnel are expendable in the pursuit of these two goals.

Anyone who really does know what Kodak should have done is forever condemned to being ignored by large corporations.

I would much rather admit my ignorance than make a fool of myself pontificating about subjects of which I have not been party to all the facts and which I have no expertise or training in .

 

[Photo Engineer]

I would much rather admit my ignorance than make a fool of myself pontificating about subjects of which I have not been party to all the facts and which I have no expertise or training in .

+1

Benji, I was there and personally heard some of the decisions being made. I am still only guessing when I write things here, as the situation was so fluid and diverse and changing from day to day. I suppose I should do the same as you but I feel that I can at least put down what I saw and heard.

Maybe more people should take your POV to heart including myself.

PE

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

I would much rather admit my ignorance than make a fool of myself pontificating about subjects of which I have not been party to all the facts and which I have no expertise or training in .

So what exactly should Kodak have done?

It's a speculation thread. I think we all know that. The original question above asked precisely for such speculation. The OP wanted to hear what the membership thought, and the membership has responded with a fascinating litany of ideas and opinions.

Engaging in such discussion is neither foolish nor pontification. Rather, it's an engagement in intellectual discourse.

So Ben, from your own perspective what exactly do you think Kodak should have done?

Ken

 

[redstarjedi]

Look at what Kodak had to do for UK employees during the bankruptcy proceedings. And now we have Alaris in the UK and no benefits for older retirees in the US. Different laws and different results!

I too have Fuji friends, and have seen that they are still doing R&D on film. Last time I saw one, he asked me to take a picture of him and then told me that I was holding a camera that contained a roll of experimental Fuji film due to debut soon.

PE

I want to believe, i really really do. But i seriously doubt a company in financial trouble would put R&D into a declining medium. I know you have no reason to lie, it's just unbelievable.

 

[bdial]

I don't find it completely unbelievable, for example, R&D on how to reduce the manufacturing scale while maintaining the profits would be very apt.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I would much rather admit my ignorance than make a fool of myself pontificating about subjects of which I have not been party to all the facts and which I have no expertise or training in .

Then you are missing a lot of fun on the internet. Those that pontificate the most know the least.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Kodak has upgraded some T grain B&W films and produced Ektar a few years back. So, I did not say Kodak stopped R&D, I said that Fuji is pursuing film R&D. It takes a minimum of about 5 years to get a new product to market barring any severe setback.

PE

 

[Ian Grant]

Kodak has upgraded some T grain B&W films and produced Ektar a few years back. So, I did not say Kodak stopped R&D, I said that Fuji is pursuing film R&D. It takes a minimum of about 5 years to get a new product to market barring any severe setback.

PE

There's two sides to everything, the film division has improved some films and not that long ago.

As a former customer I've suffered because of the company's poor decisions when Kodak outsource manufacture (chemistry etc) and distribution. The latter distribution meant I couldn't find Kodak Tmax (or any other Kodak B&W) film when living abroad.

First when still living in the UK there were the issues of supply when Sangers (who took over Kodak distribution from Kodak Ltd the UK company) went bankrupt, ironically the new company that then stepped in were all the old Kodak people (and are evidently first rate), and later when living in Turkey and traveling in South America.

There was a major break down in the International supply chain, not caused by the division actually making film rather the poor decisions of the Senior management not keeping enough control of distribution. It was very frustrating being in a large Capital city spending 3 days trying to get Kodak film, in the end I switched back to Ilford films available everywhere (I've visited).

Ian

 

[cmacd123]

Konica?

Minolta merged with Konica, and decided to concentrate on Business machines. (copiers)

They combined this cameras Businesses by bacicaly addinng the Konica name to the Minolta Digital cameras. That Business was sold to sony who already Made digital cameras, but now makes the continuation of the Minolta Digital SLRS as Alpha.

Konica also was known as Sakura which WAS a film manufacturer doing back as far as Kodak. I would assume that the combined firm would have a lot of patents and know how on colour vision imaging related issues.

If Kodak had been offered the Konica minolta DSLR business to run, they would have had a steeper learning curve than Sony (who I imagine was working with Minolta) But would have had an experienced High end team to lean them into DIgicam production.

As I recall Kodak did buy one of the Private label lower end Japanese camera firms, and ran it for a couple of years as "Kodak Japan"

 

[benjiboy]

So what exactly should Kodak have done?

It's a speculation thread. I think we all know that. The original question above asked precisely for such speculation. The OP wanted to hear what the membership thought, and the membership has responded with a fascinating litany of ideas and opinions.

Engaging in such discussion is neither foolish nor pontification. Rather, it's an engagement in intellectual discourse.

So Ben, from your own perspective what exactly do you think Kodak should have done?

Ken

I don't know "exactly what Kodak should have done" that's why I don't offer an opinion.

 

[cmacd123]

Kodak has upgraded some T grain B&W films and produced Ektar a few years back. So, I did not say Kodak stopped R&D, I said that Fuji is pursuing film R&D.

But When EKTAR 100 Came out, they did say that it was based on the Vision Movie film technology. (just tweaked back to C-41) so that R&D was mostly for the folks in Entertainment omaging, who went from Vision, to Vison 2 and Vison 3 in a very small Number of years, to try to keep up with Fuji.

Once Fuji figured they won, they stopped playing a discontinued their entire Movie line with the exception of their B&W separation film. That is probably the end of all R&D at Fuji and Kodak related to film. ;(

 

[Xmas]

It's interesting you (Ron - PE) mention how the laws differ in different countries, I don't think the CEO and his buddies at EK on the board could have got away with what they did to Kodak in Europe.

There were articles a few years ago now in the more serious UK newspapers, naming a Kodak non executive board member who recruited Peres and others and then went into detail about how they were paying themselves high wages and bonuses as the company was losing business, but still cash rich.

The irony was that Peres was advising the US President (as a business adviser) as he oversaw the rapid decline of EK which he accelerated.

I knew that when Kodak closed their research facilities at their (then) quite new Cambridge Science Park site (in the UK) and dropped their high end DSLRs there was going to be a huge shrinkage. It was obvious the top management hadn't got a clue.

On the the other hand through work I knew a very senior UK Fuji employee and they'd predicted the switch from film to digital quite accurately, and so had Edwin Land before his death.

Ian

HiIan

But Kodak had predicted the switch and had rationalised staff and production eg stopping the UK Harrow film coater in 2004-5 and making 450 staff redundant.

Their chapter 11 problem was they had not predicted the rate of decline through 10, 11, 12 in cine and had budgeted to spend at a higher rate than their actual income.

They are using film income (profit) as a cash cow to diversify.

Before digital came along they were woeful, or that was the appreciation of one of my in laws who was a Kodak manager at their UK headquarters.

My question in 1980 was

'Will your pension be ok?'

Noel

 

[Xmas]

I must agree with you that Kodak cameras aren't good. The old Retina's were fine but compared to others they are not that good. So although they make great film and at least in the beginning great image sensor they simply couldn't make good cameras. The market for digital photography is for making the entire camera and not just the sensor.

The Retina family was as good or better than the Voightlander and Zeiss contemporaries, all three had bet on a comparable (in some cases 'compatible') family of between the lens shutters and mounts which were an effective compromise but few people bought.

The Ja industry went for manufacturing efficiency, the US provided them the production techniques they used in WWII, the Ge volume industry declined.

Kodak had bought a plant in the wrong country. The USA had taken the Ge patents as a reparation and free issued them to the world, including the Ja, an own goal. The US only kept a few secret like nerve gas.

 

[Photo Engineer]

Nerve gas was well known in all warring countries before the end of WWII.

A very very senior member of the photo industry was a conscientious objector at the start of WWII. His service consisted of allowing tests on his arms of various chemicals. He had the scars to prove it.

PE

 

[Paul Howell]

It seems to me that Kodak attempted to diversify, unlike Fujifilm Holding, Kodak just make the wrong picks. Kodak, Fuji, Forte, Agfa were to some extent victims of their own success, they made a lot of film and paper in very large plants that could or cannot be scaled down. While Fuji has other income to fall back on Fuji has stopped making as many products as Kodak, and Forte and Agfa are both gone. Other than picking better lines to get into I don't if Kodak could have anything different, the digital wave took a lot of people by surprise. Even if Kodak had done a better job of bring out digital cameras to complete with Nikon, Canon and the like, the money for Kodak was not in selling one off cameras, it was in the film and paper. If I recall correctly at it's peak Kodak was earing 20 billion a year. How much does Nikon and Canon make a year?

 

[RattyMouse]

It seems to me that Kodak attempted to diversify, unlike Fujifilm Holding, Kodak just make the wrong picks. Kodak, Fuji, Forte, Agfa were to some extent victims of their own success, they made a lot of film and paper in very large plants that could or cannot be scaled down. While Fuji has other income to fall back on Fuji has stopped making as many products as Kodak, and Forte and Agfa are both gone. Other than picking better lines to get into I don't if Kodak could have anything different, the digital wave took a lot of people by surprise. Even if Kodak had done a better job of bring out digital cameras to complete with Nikon, Canon and the like, the money for Kodak was not in selling one off cameras, it was in the film and paper. If I recall correctly at it's peak Kodak was earing 20 billion a year. How much does Nikon and Canon make a year?

Yes, exactly right. There simply isnt enough money selling digital cameras to replace lost film sales. Because of this, Kodak could not have won Not at all. They were doomed from the start. Even if they sold the most digital cameras today they would *still* be ailing.

At Fujifilm digital cameras represent 5% or less of the company. 95% of Fuji has *nothing* to do with digital cameras. Fujifilm "won" by getting out of the game.

http://www.amazon.com/Innovating-Out-Crisis-Fujifilm-Vanishing/dp/1611720230/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1446496955&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=fujifilm+book+ceo

 

[DREW WILEY]

Something I've noticed with some of these big manufacturing corporations in general is that they are so busy juggling their numerous divisions that it easy to lose concentration on any specific one. They forget who they are, where they came from, who their loyal customers are, and drop the ball. You might or might not have enough inside information to identify where a wrong fork in the road was taken. But in the big picture, some of these companies just got too big for their own good. So when they end up trimming the overall budget for some reason or another (downturn, greed, whatever), they inevitably lose key people who did feel responsible for the success of a specific segment of the pie. I happen to personally know owners of large commercial labs - real big spenders with Kodak - who got burned pretty bad when Kodak decide to pull the plug on some particular service or product line arbitrarily. That's how you make enemies out of formerly
loyal customers. Yet in these situations, the thinking becomes, well that's just one segment of the market, and we still have numerous
others. First the octopus loses one arm, then two, three, four .... So in this respect, "diversification" is sometimes the worst thing to do,
unless it's done very carefully. Back in the 90's a number of US mfg corporations went down the drain by taking their profits and diversifying down avenues they were unfamiliar with rather than by upgrading their own aging infrastructure. But that was the mantra back
then. Beware of geeks bearing advice.

 

[AgX]

It seems to me that Kodak attempted to diversify, unlike Fujifilm Holding, Kodak just make the wrong picks. Kodak, Fuji, Forte, Agfa were to some extent victims of their own success, they made a lot of film and paper in very large plants that could or cannot be scaled down. While Fuji has other income to fall back on Fuji has stopped making as many products as Kodak, and Forte and Agfa are both gone.

Agfa is not gone at all. Just by kicking off their consumer business (which mostly was analogue) and going digital with their non-consumer customers they tried to evade the digital dilemma, the same time trying to keep their resting chemical plants in business.
But, this did not go along without scary moments during last world economic crisis. And as already hinted at above could be seen as evidence that pointing just the finger at Kodak and blaming them for taking the wrong decision is cheap.

 

[Paul Howell]

Cheap as it may be be there is no getting around the fact that Kodak made bad choices, inkjet printers, just one many bad decisions. On the other hand if Kodak had made better investments would not have changed the final outcome for film, paper or chemistry, just to stock holders.

 

[OzJohn]

That's not true. Fuji makes great films and very innovative digital cameras. I think the difference with Fuji though is that continued making professional-level film cameras until recently, so they already had the technology in place to make cameras when digital came about. Kodak quit making high-end cameras decades ago and didn't have the ability to make pro-level cameras when digital came about. That's why they used Canon and Nikon film bodies as a basis for their digital cameras, which made cumbersome, large, expensive cameras compared to the digital cameras that Canon, Nikon, and Fuji began making themselves.

Regarding Fuji not quite right. Their first three digital SLRs were based on consumer level Nikon film bodies (S, S2, S3) while the fourth, the S5 was a re-engineered Nikon D200 (there was no S4). OzJohn

 

[OzJohn]

I think in reality Kodak was doomed once digital was invented. Face it, digital wins out over film because it offers the mass public what it wants: instant gratification at a very low cost.

I agree with you. Let's not forget either that photography was not the first industry to encounter digital disruption. How about the printing industry? Once Apple invented the first Mac or more correctly the first GUI and HP managed to make a marginally affordable laser printer that Apple could re-brand to go with the Mac and call the package "Desktop Publishing", all but the largest of print shops were on a slippery slope from which they would never escape. How many people here would go to a printer today to get things like wedding invitations or flyers printed?

It is well understood that Kodak was making enormous profits from film - a consumable made in vast quantities using mature technology and substantially self-manufactured ingredients. I find it improbable that Kodak's senior management did not understand that those profits were coming under attack, facing terminal decline and essentially irreplaceable by diversification into any other product or technology. There may well have been no real solution for Kodak and its shareholders. OzJohn

 

[Mick Fagan]

I agree with you. Let's not forget either that photography was not the first industry to encounter digital disruption. How about the printing industry? Once Apple invented the first Mac or more correctly the first GUI and HP managed to make a marginally affordable laser printer that Apple could re-brand to go with the Mac and call the package "Desktop Publishing", all but the largest of print shops were on a slippery slope from which they would never escape. How many people here would go to a printer today to get things like wedding invitations or flyers printed?

OzJohn

Apple didn't have that much to do with the invention of that term, "Desktop Publishing", Paul Brainerd did.


Aldus Corporation founder Paul Brainerd, is generally credited for coining the phrase, "desktop publishing" after the development of Aldus PageMaker.

I met him once back in the late eighties when I was in the graphic arts industry, very knowledgeable fella.

Aldus Pagemaker was the thing that pulled pretty much everything together, I still have my set of large floppies with that programme on.

Combined with the Laser printer manufactured by Canon using (I believe) Hewlett Packard proprietary Technology and running on the little Apple Macintosh computer, we had a little publishing system for about $15,000 AUD, compared to around $90,000 AUD for the cheapest existing system.

Mick.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Too often the easiest line of thought is to say that because a given situation turned out a certain way, it must have always been fated to turn out that way, and no other outcome was ever possible. Such thinking sounds reasonable on the surface because it extends upon an already visible known result. It's an easy prediction to make because it has precedence one can point to that appears to support it.

Yet in real life outcomes are rarely so cut and dried. More often than not things happen in the least expected and/or most amazing ways. Cause and effect are notoriously difficult to predict because the models in question are overwhelmingly complex in nature. Or as the bumper sticker so wisely informs us all, sometimes shit just happens.

I am not convinced that digital cameras absolutely HAD to kill off film. That it was a zero-sum game with only two remaining chairs on the floor and the music about to be stopped one last time. However, for whatever reasons that appears to be what Kodak believed. An article of faith. And my sense is that belief helped cripple their ability to see beyond the perceived existential fear.

Given just a modicum of well-timed clarity and several different paths through the forest taken, it's very possible that Photography as we know today could have been radically different than that which we currently see. History is replete with examples where, with a handful of sometimes random differing circumstances and a few well-chosen forks in the road, circumstances would have evolved in an entirely different direction. (This is what makes the study of history so fascinating.)

So it's always smart money to say that the current state of things was the only possible way for those things to have played out. But if one is willing to think a little bit deeper and give mind to the lessons of the past, one will quickly discover that unpredictable shit does indeed happen, both positive and negative. And in ways we never could have foreseen.

Digital disruption as a cause would have arrived regardless, but its aftermath was never a matter of blind fate. What we see today is certainly an effect. But it was never the only possible effect.

"Damn! I never saw THAT coming..."

Wish I had a dollar for every time in my life I've uttered that epiphany.

Ken