What happens to the M9 if Kodak goes out of business?

[raytoei@gmail.com]

short term: m9 prices will shoot up as it is now RARE.

mid term: ccd division will be sold off (to Leica ?) or spun off.... and continue to supply Leica with great sensors.

long term: who knows ? As keynes said, in the long run, we are all dead....


🙂

 

[rodt16s]

If Kodak has their own wafer fab to produce the sensors then it's a whole different ball game than if it is manufactured in a 3rd party facility. It would be easier for Leica to purchase the process and IP if it is run in under sub-con than be burdened with the overhead of a whole wafer fab (for basically some low volume niche product).. If Kodak look to get out of this business, I would suggest Leica will have a last time buy of the M9 sensor covering the future requirement and then (if there are not already) look to bring in a new supplier for the M10 etc.. If it is sold as a going concern, then Leica have the choice where to develop future prodcuts.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Easy to tell that people have not been around the digital industry for very long after reading this thread.

If you can still buy a Sensor for a camera that was discontinued 7 years ago from a Division that has changed hands twice, why is anyone really panicking?

 

[kbg32]

People love to worry.

 

[kbg32]

News flash. Just reported on the news 5 minutes ago, Kodak's stock has surged upwards 70%. Kodak has no desire to file for bankruptcy and has hired a law firm to help them restructure.

 

[kbg32]

Stop worrying gentleman, please.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

The SKY FILTER is falling, the SKY FILTER is falling!

I dropped it, but it landed on the carpet.

 

[rodt16s]

I'll sleep easier now the supply of cat pics and tree shots is secured for the foreseeable future.

 

[jsrockit]

News flash. Just reported on the news 5 minutes ago, Kodak's stock has surged upwards 70%. Kodak has no desire to file for bankruptcy and has hired a law firm to help them restructure.

70% of a dollar something isn't much... plus, when did the surge occur, in the pre-market? 😉

 

[Roger Hicks]

70% of a dollar something isn't much... plus, when did the surge occur, in the pre-market? 😉

Um.... yes it is, actually. 70% is 70%. And there's more than one share. Given that a 25% drop was described as a 'plummet', 70% is very nearly a triple unplummet.

But markets always use hysterical terms to describe truly tiny percentage changes. I've heard 'fallen sharply' used for shifts of as little as 2%.

Cheers,

R.

 

[jsrockit]

Roger, the stock didn't go up 70%, so I was commenting on the "rumor" more than the market in general. Yes, 70% is a lot... but it isn't going to change this situation in the ways the poster stated.

It is up 8% though.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

If it keeps dropping, I'll sell the Nikon collection and buy it. Then Leica will have to deal with me and I'm going to sell them Monochrome KAF-18500's. And IR Versions!

 

[gilpen123]

No more M9 on December 21, 2012

 

[rxmd]

Given that a 25% drop was described as a 'plummet', 70% is very nearly a triple unplummet.

It's double at best; if your $100 stock loses 25% and gains 70%, you end up with $127.5, or in other words you end up gaining what you lost. This is the classic beginning speculator's mistake why people eat lots of losses; lose 50% and now you have to gain 100% to break even.

Now a double gain wouldn't be bad by itself, except that there actually were no 70% either.

Regarding "fallen sharply" at 2% change - if you go to sleep with 40°C fever and wake up with 39.2°, your fever has fallen sharply. 2% doesn't sound like a lot, but the significance really depends on the context. If people, for example, have been speculating on derivatives a lot, a 2% change in the wrong direction can have quite significant consequences, and those people (which may well be your bank) may have to eat losses a lot greater than those 2%.

 

[jamato8]

If it keeps dropping, I'll sell the Nikon collection and buy it. Then Leica will have to deal with me and I'm going to sell them Monochrome KAF-18500's. And IR Versions!

Go for it! Leica is supposed to do B/W only anyway. Back to the roots!

 

[semilog]

Go for it! Leica is supposed to do B/W only anyway. Back to the roots!

Only for the first 30 years or so. Even the Summitar was designed for color.

 

[rxmd]

Only for the first 30 years or so. Even the Summitar was designed for color.

Quite remarkable actually; 35mm colour film became available only in 1936, and in 1939 Leica had colour-optimized fast lenses for the slow colour films of the day on the market. If anything, it shows that Leica ceased to be B&W-only and embraced colour as soon as they could.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

The Summar is highly color corrected, just suffered from vignetting which was more critical with slide film.

 

[_mark__]

One thing go can be sure of is the inevitable price increases.

 

[willie_901]

If the CCD used in the M9 has customers to buy it and it generates profits, it will continue to be manufactured even if it doesn't have the Kodak name on it. The same goes for any Kodak product...

Generating profits is not necessarily sufficient. Sometimes corporations are only interested in generating high-volume cash flows. I have been personally aware of decisions that killed a perfectly viable product predicted to generate $250 million dollar per year cash flow (and significant profit) because the corporation was only interested in bringing products to market with $500 million or larger cash flows.

Niche products require niche manufacturers.