How Kodak can remain competitive in today's changing photo world

Kodak holds a special place in my heart because I got into 35mm
photography back during my college years in Rochester, NY, where they
were a big part of the local economy and identity.

I could always count on Kodak processing being the best, and am very
grateful that they processed much of the film that I shot 25 years ago
and am scanning now. Many of the slides and negatives that were
non-Kodak film and/or non-Kodak processed did not hold up as well.

Kodak cannot compete in the digital hardware arena with cameras,
scanners, printers, etc. There are other players that do much better
with this. The same holds true with film cameras, where they were
never a serious player in the high-end SLR market.

Where they can most definitely compete is the area film-to-digital
scanning. They are off to a good strart with the Photo CD / Perfect
Touch system, but there is some room for improvement:

1. There should be a "no print" option at reduced cost. I would
imagine that many who use the photo CD service resent paying for
unwanted prints, and this becomes more the case as the photographer
becomes more serious. The cost should be 1/2 to 2/3 of the single
print option, i.e., 6 to 9 dollars for a 24-exp C-41 roll.

2. The photos online options should offer larger images sizes than
600x800 as is done on the CD's

3. There should be a minimal CD option where just JPG's or TIF's are
stored without all the amateur-level software packages. Along with
that should be an option to have multiple rolls on one CD to reduce
cost and storage volume.

4. Services should be expanded and aggressively marketd to include
previously exposed films. There is a huge untapped market of legacy
negatives and slides just waiting for a service like this.

Some of my own legacy film scanning efforts can be seen here:
http://www.richardsfault.com/Rochester81.html

There is a huge amount of great stuff like this out there just waiting
to be scanned and shared. I believe that Kodak could become a leader
in this area. An "update and share old memories" promotion is what is
needed.


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Some people claim that there's a woman to blame, but I think it's all...

Richard's fault!

Visit the Sounds of the cul-de-sac at www.richardsfault.com

 

Subject: How Kodak can remain competitive in today's changing photo world

Why not write Kodak an email and share these/your thoughts with them where it
will do actual good? Just talking about it is nice, but...

 

Kodak has offered that exact thing, but in the mostly professional oriented Pro
Photo CD services. The consumer level version offers lower maximum resolution
images, but is also lower cost.

Also, Pro Photo CD has always been above that resolution.

Again, possible with Pro Photo CD. I think cost and their desire to not have that
service compete with the consumer product is what limits the consumer product.

The last part I do agree with, and I am surprised that Fuji and AGFA have not
tried to get into that aspect of the market. Perhaps when the economy picks up a
little we will see something like this.

 

I agree, and am originally from upstate NY myself (just not Rochester).

However I think it's over for Kodak, and when the corporate historians
look back, it will be recognized that the Fuji Frontier killed Kodak.
Kodak ceded the minilab business to Noritsu and Gretag, choosing to
concentrate on maxilabs like Qualex (I guess). The Frontier is best
in class, and supports digital cameras as well as could be hoped.
Noritsu and Gretag introduced digital minilabs, without much success.
Eventually (soon?) Frontiers will displace other minilab equipment.
And Frontiers work best with Fuji film, which will cause people to
stop buying Kodak film (if they can detect quality differences).
Meanwhile one large chain after another switches to Frontier.

Kodak digicams sell very well, and their market share is increasing.
I have no idea how profitable digicam are for Kodak.

Aside from PhotoCD scanners, Kodak never made scanners (they OEMed
from Pacific Image) so it's hard to know about the scanner question
given that Kodak never tried to compete there. Kodak does make a
successful(?) line of dye sublimation and in-store kiosk printers.
Epson dominates the home market, with Canon making inroads. Kodak
has tried to enter the most-profitable segment of the inkjet market
by providing paper, but AFAIK not yet ink cartridges.

 

I think that Kodak killed their own products. Their (color negative) film
offerings to the general public are just for people with cheap P&S cameras.
I fail to understand why professional films should be different from
consumer films. Of course handling and quality control can be different.
The regular Gold is quite bad. They had good films, but somehow didn't
want to sell them to avarage consumers.

And then, make things worse, the Kodak lab in .nl could make decent prints.
But they 'improved' to process in a direction I don't like (again probably to
improve things for the P&S people). And then, they don't want to just
develop color negative film either.

If Fuji offers what I want, they can get my money.

 

Bill Tuthill wrote:

http://tinyurl.com/3e9bu

Agfa d-lab.2 is best per Chasseur D'Images, as I sumarised last year.
Noritsu is bottom of the heap.

 

Much the same situation with AGFA in European markets, in that they have
eaten into the film and image processing market share of Kodak.

I have actually had great results from putting Kodak film through Fuji
Frontier equipment. Of course, that could just be the lab I use. However,
I can see your point that many would want to match the gear to the film.
Many pro labs have gone Fuji, though I see drug stores and department
stores with Kodak gear (not that I would use them). I think Kodak is
hitting middle America (rural) and department stores, though I doubt they
can regain market share from Fuji in the US.

Going buy their SEC filings, it seems that the chip production for others
has good profits, though obviously film is still more profitable. The
largest consumer level product profits and revenues are from one-time-use
camera sales. The largest sector revenue and profits are actually
commercial markets, including medical imaging, printing industry,
government contracts, et al, though largely these endeavours are very
transparent to the general public. Most of their digital profits are low,
though apparently their hope is that future increased market share will
eventually yield better profits. Lots of information to read, though if
one is willing to dig through the papers, a true picture appears of Kodak.

Actually, they do, but only at a more commercial level. Kodak bought Encad
only a couple years ago, though they are a large format inkjet printer
specialist. The quality is quite good, but they have never aimed at the
desktop/home user market with Encad products.

 

I think they are #2 in U.S. market share right now.

Ah, you really *are* ignorant. For a while, Kodak was the *entire*
digital SLR market. And lots of people still use them. Check used
prices for, say, a DCS720x or DCS760.

Google for "Applied Science Fiction". Kodak acquired them for just
that function: their technology scans film in high quality without
conventional development.

<snip>

 

It depends on the film - but fuji labs do give best results with fuji film
and by some reports totaly mangle some other films (konica). It would
be rather odd if they were not at least partially tuned to what fuji
does.

[snip]