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Kodak running low on simoleons?

Seems as if Kodak has some financial issues as the had the need to take a loan
of about 160 million US-Dollars. That’s a pretty big loan indeed. The fact that
Kodak has chosen to take the loan just few days before the end of the fiscal
quarter may let you think, that there are severe financial issues ongoing.

Kodak known very well by it’s old logo that accompanied people for years if it deals with analogue photography, recently decided to give up on filmrolls to feed analogue photography. The reason may be the digital era that makes life easier than the classic photography where you had to develop the film after you have taken the pics. The other fact was of ecological nature that the development process of analogue pics consumed lots of chemicals that harms the environment. And from economical sight, the business with filmrolls and development chemicals and tools was reducing more and more so that it got into the deficit zone. That’s why Kodak finally laid down the complete analogue Picture era and focussed more and more on digital imaging. Yet the Kodachrome diafilm was very successfull even in earlier times as the following picture is prooving:

City scene of Picadilly Circus, London in 1949 – Impressive what cameras were able
to do in THAT early time on Kodachrome film, Kodak has produced from 1936 to 2009
Picture is 10 MB in size – Give it some time to load and don’t watch this on your cell phone!

Kodak later tried to cath the running train of the digital imaging era by placing digital cameras on the market. Yet the success was not passing by as other manufacturers, such as Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Sony, Samsung and Panasonic already flooded the market with real successful products before.

The same fate has happened to Agfa-Gevaert, which produced almost the same products as Kodak. Yet it seems as if Agfa is very successful as it reached for other areas as well. Now Agfa is producing professional imaging and printing equippment and supports the healthcare department with professional IT. So while Agfa is already some time on the market it is doubtful that Kodak can squeeze in so easily without being noticed and probably fought by Agfa. With it’s rather modern products and a solid financial fundament, Kodak will have to try hard in order to succedd against Agfa. And Agfa itself isn’t sleeping also. It’s just a question of time when both are probably fighting against each other and cramming out some patents out of their attics. And Agfa has currently no lawsuit running against Apple, that would cost millions of simoleons.

So what does Kodak do right now? Kodak sells High-Speed scanners, professional printers (as Agfa does) but still seems to make more revenue of it compared to Agfa. The gross revenue was 13 billion US-Dollars in 2010 compared to Agfa which “only” revenued 2.8 billion US-Dollars in 2010.

So what’s the reason for issuing a loan in such a high region. Dies Kodak plan to release something new to us? or do they plan to acquire a competitor in order to be more successful? No one knows for sure, but Kodak has to do someting in order not to fail. And Scanners and Printers do not carry all the revnue by themselves. With the fallout of the Kodachrome production, Kodak has lost a big fan community who loved analogue imaging. And when looking at the picture above, that was taken 62 years ago, I can understand them. It’s the loss of a very faithful companion eventhough it can’t compete with the imaging products available today!


September 27, 2011 Netspark - 1594 posts - Member since: May 9th, 2011 No Comments »

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