If something is not profitable any more. Most corporations dump it or
reorganize it so that it is. That may be what Fuji is doing. The
Japanese are very good at industrial engineering. They may be
successful at turning film manufacturing into the boutique item it is
becoming. Kodak like other American companies shutters the doors and
takes a write off. The rust belt did not happen accidentally. Most
likely Kodak will sell their name and processes to a third party
which is willing to do the industrial design to do a low production
film product. Didn't Kodak do that with their film developing and
printing?
Mass production of the film for the world is not longer profitable. A
mass film production plant running at a small fraction of its
capacity cannot be profitable. Maybe someone can find a way to with
new machines and processes to make film efficiently in smaller
quantities.
I do not think that film is subsidizing digital at Kodak, Fuji or
anywhere else. If film was producing cash there is no way it would be
discontinued. Nikon only makes one film camera now, the F6. It is not
supporting the digital effort. If anything it is the other way around.
It is a mistake perhaps to see these things as irrational decisions
by corporations. The decisions are being made by people buying
digital products. I doubt that a marketing blitz for film would have
much effect. They know what they want.
I am not surprised in the rise in commercial printing of digital
files. The brave capable people already made the transition. We have
been seeing the bottom of the barrel in the transition to digital in
the past year or so, people who want to press the button and turn it
over to someone else like they always have. And even for a skilled
digital photographer the grunt work of knocking out mass 4x6 prints
for friends and family is best left to someone else's automatic
process, not that it is inherently better. We all know people who buy
an expensive car and then at tire time put the cheapest one on it
they can find.
Winsor
Long Beach, California, USA
On Apr 28, 2006, at 7:45 AM, Bill Pearce wrote:
>
> The world's second-largest camera film maker after U.S.-
>>> based Eastman Kodak suffers from a shrinking camera film market,
>>> even
>>> though that business now accounts for less than 10 percent of its
>>> sales.
> This is the very reason that I have questioned the sanity of Kodak's
> announcement a year or so ago that they wanted to get out of the finm
> business and go digital entirely. I believe the CEO that made that
> statement
> has already added his name to the ever-growing list of ex-Kodak
> CEO's, but
> that is a revolving door.
>
> It has been reported that Kodak has never shown a profit on any
> digital
> effort. The entirety of the digital business has been supported by
> revenues
> from the film related businesses. Since a cornerstone of American
> business
> has been the art of wringing dry mature technologies, the actions
> of some
> film producers amazes me.
>
> A recent report in the photo trades indicated that an expanding
> market is
> the making of chemical prints from digital camera files. It seems
> that the
> average P&S customer has just in the last year discovered that it is
> possible to download files to their local Waalmart or Walgreens,
> and get
> nice, shiny prints. Prthaps Kodak will have the last laugh, since
> Fuji and
> Konica have shut down their USA paper coating facilities.
>
> Bill Pearce
>
>
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