Kodak to Stop Selling Consumer Inkjet Printers, Cut More Jobs

[marmar]

(Bloomberg) Eastman Kodak Co. (EKDKQ), the bankrupt photography pioneer, plans to cut as many as 200 more jobs as it prepares to stop selling consumer inkjet printers next year.

The company will continue to sell ink supplies to customers, according to a statement today. The job cuts would come on top of the 1,000 that Rochester, New York-based Kodak announced on Sept. 10. The company also is seeking to extend its exclusive right to negotiate its restructuring during bankruptcy. The right is due for a review next month.

Chief Executive Officer Antonio Perez has been selling businesses to help fund a turnaround after seeking Chapter 11 protection in January. The company said earlier this month it’s “making progress” in a restructuring that includes selling its consumer-film, photo-kiosk and commercial-scanner businesses and an extended effort to auction its digital-imaging patents.

Kodak announced the 1,000 job cuts earlier this month after already shedding 2,700 employees globally this year. Kodak also said earlier this month that Chief Operating Officer Philip Faraci and Chief Financial Officer Antoinette McCorvey are leaving. Rebecca Roof, a managing director of the company’s restructuring adviser AlixPartners, will become interim CFO. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-28/kodak-to-stop-selling-consumer-inkjet-printers-cut-more-jobs.html

[liberal N proud]

1. I know these peoples pain

You worked your whole life for a strong company, their main product is no longer viable product. The end of the road and it is a cliff.

I work for a company, like Kodak, was a major competitor in a consumer product that is at the end of it's 100+ life-cycle. We have been told that in November, they will announce significant downsizing plans. I have 29 years invested in this job, I have to go down with the ship to get any severance that might be offered.

Talk about stress! These people are facing it head on.

[HopeHoops]

2. As much as I feel for the loss of jobs, Kodak never made decent printers - and the company is dying.

It really didn't make it into the real world of digital photography. HP is at least 15 years ahead of them. Epson was the only dot matrix I'd buy, but their laser jets and ink jets suck. Brothers made great typewriters, but Heaven help you if you buy one of their printers. Kodak just didn't keep up with the curve. If I was a stock trader, I'd short sell it right now.

[liberal N proud]

5. Kodak was the first major developer of Digital Photography

Since the mid-1970s, Kodak has invented several solid-state image sensors that "converted light to digital pictures" for professional and home consumer use. In 1986, Kodak scientists invented the world's first megapixel sensor, capable of recording 1.4 million pixels that could produce a 5x7-inch digital photo-quality print. In 1987, Kodak released seven products for recording, storing, manipulating, transmitting and printing electronic still video images. In 1990, Kodak developed the Photo CD system and proposed "the first worldwide standard for defining color in the digital environment of computers and computer peripherals." In 1991, Kodak released the first professional digital camera system (DCS), aimed at photojournalists. It was a Nikon F-3 camera equipped by Kodak with a 1.3 megapixel sensor.

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bldigitalcamera.htm

[HopeHoops]

6. Yeah, but they lost the market. Nikon destroyed them in the marketplace.

Sony owns the digital video camera market, but Nikon owns the still market. There's not much serious competition for either of them in those zones.

[frazzled]

3. So sad to see the end of an era for this once-groundbreaking company

When I think of all the movies that for the better part of a century depended on Kodak, and all the rolls of film we developed for our cameras -- now both mediums gone digital -- it makes me kind of sad. Really, it defined the twentieth century, and was the linchpin of an entire cultural history. But they had a good 100-year run. I hope the people who are losing their jobs can find something else soon.

Pretty soon, all we'll have left is a museum--and one I wish I could visit:

George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, the world’s oldest photography museum and one of the world’s oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 as an independent, non-profit museum. It combines the world’s leading collections of photography and film with the stately pleasures of the landmark Colonial Revival mansion and gardens that George Eastman called home from 1905 to 1932. The Museum is a National Historic Landmark. Mr. Eastman, the founder of Eastman Kodak Company, is heralded as the father of modern photography and motion picture film.

World-renowned for its photograph and motion picture archives, the Museum is also a leader in film preservation and photograph conservation, educating the top archivists and conservators from around the world.

http://www.eastmanhouse.org/museum/history.php

[global1]

4. I Blame The People That Ran Kodak When Digital Photography Was Coming Into Its Own.....

At that time they should have begun to make a move into digital themselves. If they did - today they would be a leader in that market. Instead it looks like they dug their heads in the sand and stuck by their current technology and business model at the time. They did too little - too late to get into digital and it just wasn't enough.

You wonder about the people at the top at that time and what they were thinking.

I really thought when they came out with the ink jet printers and the cheap ink - in competition with the likes of HP - that they would begin to take market share. Unfortunately HP was too heavily invested in the market and I really think that HP froze out Kodak in the stores. I'm sure that HP used its weight in the market to prevent Kodak from gaining any market share. Probably strong armed the likes of Best Buy and Circuit City among other big electronic and computer stores and kept Kodak off the shelves.

I thought that Kodak coming out with the cheap ink cartridges would take over the market. HP has consistently lowered the prices on their printers and raised the prices on their ink cartridges. I bet they even put less ink in the cartridges than they did when they first started. At any rate HP is the 800lb gorilla in the market and froze out Kodak.

[Javaman]

8. Here's the irony...

Steven J. Sasson (b. 1950) is an electrical engineer who is credited with inventing the digital imaging sensor, while working with supervisor Gareth A. Lloyd at the Eastman Kodak Company.

In 1978, Sasson and Lloyd were issued United States Patent 4,131,919 for their digital camera.
* The charge-coupled device used in digital cameras was invented in 1969 at AT&T Bell Labs by Willard Boyle and George E. Smith.

[PowerToThePeople]

7. I am an HP printer fan

Recently added a laser-jet to the mix. Boy, what a cost savings per page. The only reason I still have an inkjet is because it has a scanner too. What a scam those cartridges are.

Kodak missed the boat on digital photography. Could have been an innovator, but chose to go the way of the dodo-bird. Kind of like how I see the GOP going...