Just a personal opinion here, so take it for what it's worth....
My day job is within the chemical industrial complex in Rochester known as Kodak Park. (This industrial park is much bigger than many of the small towns in the Rochester area -- they've even got their own water treatment plant, fire department, and waste incineration facilities.) I don't work for Kodak, but my company (which used to be a Kodak division) still leases space in a couple buildings here in the Park. I think the "Yellow Father" is likely going to be in the conventional film market for a long, long time to come. Yes, the production machinery is relatively old, but there's apparently so much profit in film-making, it's incredible. These lucrative profits are the source of all the money Kodak has spent on digital imaging over the past few years. So far, they're not making money on consumer digital.
Kodak has always been a "razor and blades" kind of affair -- give away the razor, then make your money selling the blades. I see two barriers which would prevent consumer digital -- at least in the US -- becoming a high-profit, sustainable business for a behemoth like Kodak. First, there don't seem to be any "blades". Once a consumer buys a digitial camera, what can Kodak continue to sell him/her to make a continuing profit? Second, given that many US consumers still have trouble setting the clocks on their VCR's, I think there will be a large segment of the US consumer base that just won't be comfortable enough with all the digital gadgetry to give up the convenience of $15 P&S cameras (or $7 single-use cameras, for that matter). Maybe in a market where cameras and film aren't so cheap, and Wal-Mart isn't open 24 hours a day, consumer digital will have a better chance to make conventional film obsolete?
Bill Peifer
Rochester, NY
(under the shadow of the "Yellow Father" and his big yellow box)
-----Original Message-----
From: james apilado [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2001 3:22 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Digtal is here. Film production to be stopped!
When the Yellow Father in Rochester gives the word that they are stopping
film production I will unload all my equipment, except for one camera, my
very first Pentax, a Honeywell Pentax H3.
Jim A.
