They have missed the boat by such a margin that even a lifeboat will not enable them to catch up.
How can you say they've missed the boat when imaging products from just about every manufacturer is licensing Kodak patents and many contain key Kodak components? They are and have been one of the genuine leaders in digital technology for many years. Its not however the sort of thing that's obvious to consumers in the way that yellow boxes of film are. I would imagine that much of Kodak's most valuable digital product is not necessarily in Kodak branded finished goods. The challenge going forward is to move quickly (something huge corporations rarely do well) to develop a business model that creates a similar load of income from a world that now buys one piece of hardware that's capable of capturing thousands of images instead one that has to come back to Kodak to buy a sliver of film for every snap of the shutter...and still more yellow box product for each print produced from that sliver of film. Its going to be a daunting task and one that I'm sure will be studied by business schools for years...whether they succeed or fail.
Kodak has certainly seen this change coming for decades and has been trying to plan accordingly. I've participated in a number of surveys going back years to monitor my film usage (or lack thereof). In the US, the same firm that tracks TV viewing habits (Nielsen) performs similar monitoring of photographers and film consumption. I'm sure Kodak is a major consumer of this data. But I think even Kodak has been caught at least a bit off guard by how fast the move away from film is now happening. I think they're being forced to shift gears even faster than they'd planned and it will be interesting to see if and how they can accomplish this.
The part of Kodak's digital product lineup that we on this list are most aware of... their pro digital cameras... are a miniscule part of their business and will never make or break the company. That said, I personally hope that their pro camera division survives and thrives... I've got to admit I have my doubts though. Not for lack of good product but because I wouldn't be surprised if they feel the need to commit precious resources to product areas that offer more long term growth and revenue potential. I hope I'm wrong.
Bob Smith
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