Kodak restructures film division? News article

ABCs title is definitely misleading. Or maybe they just anticipated what is to come.

In any way, if one of the big two closes their film business it will strengthen the other.

Getting certain emulsions has and may become harder, but in one way or another film will be around. No sweat. 😉
 
The restructuring has done good things to their share prices as they seem to be committing themselves to digital at last, and this in itself will help preserve something of their film business. It is likely that they will purge more lines of film, but if they can save the company then they might just make enough to keep our cameras loaded, and that's what counts.
 
Rochester has "smart-sized" their film line: the Portra line has been simplified (i.e. no more "NC" and "VC" versions of 160 and 400). I'm not terribly bothered by this, since I've been scanning my film for close to 14 years, and can tweak color rather easily if needed. (I've only shot NC myself.)


- Barrett
 
divewizard said:
They did not eliminate film. The elimintated the separate film group and it will become part of the commercial business division.
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It's more convoluted than that. Cine film will be part of the commercial business division. Roll film sales will be the purview of consumer products division.

At this point, the CEO at Kodak is probably rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship.

Kodak has essentially bet the farm on printers with the last of their funds. The forecast is that by 2013, Kodak will be making money on both printers and ink.

Kodak is and has been a conglomerate of businesses. The whole corporate structure is billions of dollars in debt. Hopefully, Kodak sells off its film business before the corporate structure collapses.

The sad truth is Kodak needed a CEO who would have been more visionary than a Steve Jobs. The current CEO, Antonio Perez has been both CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors since January 2006. At some point someone needs to say that despite his 25 year career at HP, he just isn't up to the task. In fact, three members of the board have just resigned.
 
Solinar said:
Hopefully, Kodak sells off its film business before the corporate structure collapses.
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Splitting it will not make a buyout easier. It rather looks as if Kodak tries to fend back against being dismembered by distributing its assets across two divisions, so that anybody who tries to part out some interesting bit will still have the other half in the hands of Kodak. It that succeeds it might rescue the whole Kodak - but if it fails, if will fail for good, without much of a hope that any part might make it through...
 
The Commercial Segment will include all of GCG plus two product lines currently in FPEG – Entertainment Imaging and Commercial Film. The Consumer Segment will include all of CDG plus three FPEG product lines – Paper & Output Systems, Event Imaging Solutions, the Consumer Film and the Intellectual Property business.
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So where is the beloved Tri-X? It is always listed as Kodak Professional, is that Commercial or Consumer?

They speak of becoming a "digital" company, that certainly sounds like film is a low priority.

(article http://www.kodak.com/ek/US/en/Kodak...ture_to_Accelerate_Digital_Transformation.htm)
 
Snacks said:
The restructuring has done good things to their share prices as they seem to be committing themselves to digital at last, and this in itself will help preserve something of their film business. It is likely that they will purge more lines of film, but if they can save the company then they might just make enough to keep our cameras loaded, and that's what counts.
Click to expand...

So what you are saying is that you really don't understand what Kodak has been doing the last decade and a half?

Their digital imaging efforts have done nothing but burn huge sums of money in a very large furnace. Their film production has been a consistent profit center.

It is uninformed armchair analysis like yours that cause financial issues in a company like Kodak. Seriously, if Kodak can't make money selling consumer digital sensors to Canon and Nikon, who could? Please tell me, because I really want to know.

The only reason Kodak is restructuring is because their digital operations are such a waste of resources. Digital imaging might be the way of the future, but it's clearly a way of non-sustainable development. IMHO, Kodak should get out of that business because it's just going to bring the whole company down.

Of course they won't do that because investors want Kodak to make digital sensors, economic realities be damned. And those same investors who insist on a particular path will blast Kodak management for "screwing up" what is an unwinnable war.
 
So where is the beloved Tri-X? It is always listed as Kodak Professional, is that Commercial or Consumer?
Click to expand...
sevo said:
Probably consumer. Commercial used to be the non-photographic stuff - x-ray, microfilm, lithography etc.
Click to expand...

When you have a look at the new structure of the Kodak website, which already seems to mirror the announced reorganization of the company in two business segments, Tri-X and the other "professional" labeled film products (=everything except drug store films) can now be found under "Commercial businesses"->"Pro Photo Products".
 
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