Well, I guess that's it then. Africa is too poor to sustain itself, and the Middle East region is probably not a good place to have that yellow sign up...
Kodak built a plant in Brazil for just this reason.
Due to economic growth, the South American economy is exploding and moving directly to digital.
The Brazil plant closed about 2 years ago.
PE
What products did they make in the Brazil plant?
I believe people in richer countries use more film than that of poor countries. I think Japanese is top in film consumption. If Kodak and its brand is for sale I believe the Chinese will buy it but to sell film in the US, Europe and Australia and not so much in China, Thailand, Vietnam etc..
It seems that China, Aferica, India and South American are leapfronging to digital. The loan Indian paper company closed a few years ago as well. A computer ink jet printer and digital camera are much less expensive than a start up analog system.
I've been thinking about this and discussing it with a number of people. Here is one thing that may be of interest to you all:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_08/b4022051.htm?campaign_id=yhoo
Read the last two sentences, please. The second from last has not been noted here and is very significant.
If Kodak continues in the film business, they sit on valuable property and sell a load of film and make a good income for the company. If they exit, as I stated elsewhere, we have either a 'new' film company, or a purchase by a group of investors.
In the latter two cases, we have to consider that any new company formed around the film units of Kodak or an outright purchase would have to contend with the problem outined in the sentence I refer to above.
Of course, a solely film company would have more interests in the customer but they would have some real problems.
As one wag said in the paper here, and which I quoted elsewhere, "Kodak may want to sell the film business but who would buy it".
Considering the reference above, I think this just might be true! This reporting explains one of the major reasons. Those who have commented to me either way may want to consider the words of this article carefully and especially the impact of that second from last sentence.
Kodak may or may not stay in the film business. The decision appears to be balanced on a razors edge.
PE
In the midlle east, women are not allowed to use a camera.
PE
I'm sure that was meant as a joke, but that is only true in some middle-eastern countries.
I'm sure that was meant as a joke, but that is only true in some middle-eastern countries.
Anyway, we're all doomed. Doooooomed. Runaway, runaway !
Stirling Photographic didn't close per se. Rather, Tata InfoTec paid the owner a small fortune to bulldoze the plant to make room for corporate housing back in 2001.
Overall, you are correct. Developing countries have not had a lengthy dallaince with film before moving straight to digital.
I tend to doubt that a startup digital system is less expensive than an analog system. Even new.
Perhaps I'm a bit sensitive to these sorts of things because I'm an American living in Yemen, but I cringe whenever I see sweeping generalizations like the one PE made, joke or not. We (Americans) could do with a lot less talk of "them" and a lot more talk, or even interest, of the diverse nature of "the Middle East". As to PE's original comment, maybe in some Saudi town/villages, since women don't seem to be allowed to do anything, but I can't think of too many places that would have that kind of restriction. Even here in Yemen, a very conservative muslim country, people wouldn't think twice about a women using a camera...
Isaac
Very interesting. The plant is still operational and, in fact, is still part of EK:
http://www.eastmangelatine.com/default.aspx
I'm guessing you'd have to be talking tons before they'd sell to you. ;-)
People keep saying that Kodak is entering the digital world too late. In my opinion that can't be more wrong. Kodak has had digital printers for many years with their Encad line. They also make some of the finest CCD and CMOS imagers and the market. Their involvement in machine vision (and other industrial applications) is extremely high, where I believe they have the current market share (might be wrong?). Sony will be the only serious competition to "low end" imagers for the near future. Dalsa is still the competition for the really high end imagers and they (Dalsa) are probably nearly ready to release something new to trump the current Kodak 39MP sensor in all the highest end digital imaging backs. Kodak also makes some of the finest digital dye sub printers on the market, something that they have been making for a large number of years. Their printers are very popular with the digital crowd because they will crank out prints at a very good rate. People that print onsite at events, and portrait packagers love them because of the simple use, and durable product. As far as the "new" Kodak desktop inkjet printers, time will tell, but they are starting off on a bad footing. They are making a multi-color ink cart, so that when you run out of cyan, you need to replace all the other colors too(excluding black). This is something that all the other inkjet companies have mostly abandoned, going to single color per cart designs.
I know everyone here has a distinctly film bias and that my opinions will label me as a digital heretic, but you really should look around at the other markets where Kodak does have a firm grasp before predicting certain doom. Will the film division survive is a good question, but I don't really see Kodak (as a whole) going away anytime soon.
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