Kodak has a long history of all kinds of false starts in both the film and
digital industries. Despite their long history of producing and selling
film cameras in NA, they have introduced such things as 110 and APS cameras
and films which they promoted as the next best new introduction shince white
bread, forcing many labs to spend money getting equipment to process those
formats only to see the cameras, film, and need for processing diappear.
Kodak's main revenue sources were the movie industry, the graphic arts and
scientific industries, and government with general consumer and professional
photography being a second tier revenue source. However, Kodak started
abandoning their first tier revenue sources by not keeping up withthe
changes in those industries but jumping on the bandwagons after the fact - a
day late and a dollar short. Having lost much of that business, they
scurried around trying to make the general film photography market revenues
make up for the reduction in revenues from the other markets but faced stiff
new competition from Fuji and others. Given this, they then attempted to
introduce all kinds of new gimmicks to recapture the general film
photography market but failed as almost every turn. they also tried dipping
their toes into the digital market but never showed the committment or
willingness to stick to anything within the digital field - they flitted
around like a gadfly at a social event. Having eliminated many of their
specialty films from their product list and facing stiff competition in the
general film photography market at both the professional and consumer levels
as well as digital, Kodak is seeking ways to stop bleeding although it still
has not found any direction in terms of the future.
Kodak has had a habit of engaging in self-fullfilling and self-denying
prophesies. They cut certain film stocks that a consistent market of
professionals have been using and try to force them to use the film de jure
that Kodak currently wants to promote. The result has been users refusing
to make the switch for a number of reasons and turning to other brands of
film and other technologies. Consequently, Kodak has lost most of the nitch
markets who also use to use Kodak for the more general items while not being
really competitive in the non-film technologies. For example, I use to like
Super XX 4x5 film for certain types of copy work. This film was also used
in the graphic arts fields for making separations. When the graphic arts
field went digital, Kodak stopped making the film despite the fact that
several professional photographers and labs still were using the film in
moderate quantities. The same sort of thing began happening with other
specialty films until uses were left with no options among films available
to choose from. With the rescent demise of Pro Copy film, users are being
forced by Kodak to use T-Max film whether or not the user likes the film or
it works well for a given job because that is the only film being produced
and recommended by Kodak for copy work (other options being Plus-X and
Tri-X). In light of the options available from Kodak, users have turned to
other film manufacturers - some of whom are making specialty films so as to
fill the gap and service the nitch market - or have gone digital but toward
more affordable equipment being put out by competitors to Kodak and its
digital line of camera's, CD blank disks, flash cards, etc.
-----Original Message-----
From: filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk
[mailto:filmscanners_owner@halftone.co.uk]On Behalf Of Arthur Entlich
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2004 4:31 AM
To: laurie@advancenet.net
Subject: [filmscanners] Kodak dropping 35mm and APS cameras in N.A.
Kodak has announced they are stopping production of their 35mm and APS
reloadable film cameras by the end of this year in North America.
Obviously, film cameras have never been Kodak's big business in North
America, but were mainly a way for them to sell more film to lower end
market buyers.
However, the fact that they see the demand disappearing with digital
cameras now out-selling film cameras in this market is interesting.
Art
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