One Billion Dollar Loss For Kodak

[Photo-John]

An article today by AP Business Writer, Ben Dobbin, in Yahoo’s financial news section, reports that Kodak lost over 1 billion dollars in 2005. In spite of shifting their focus to digital technology and doing some serious restructuring, they’re still losing money. However, 2005 is the first year that they’ve generated more income from digital than silver-based products. And according to their financial statement, overall sales are on the rise.

Yahoo Article >>

Kodak Financial Statement >>

[jimg]

Hi Photo-John.
I'll try this again. I guess I'm so surprised at Kodaks moves that I hit a wrong button while typing and my re-ply to you vanished. L.O.L. I was saying that I read the report in this mornings paper about Kodak. The reason why I'm a little surprised and mad is, a little over a year ago I bought the Kodak (DCS Pro. 14n camera). Now I'm not a pro. but I wanted to start out with a good camera. The kicker is, I just got the Nov. Popular Photography magazine, and init it with a Canon camera review, it said (Kodak is throwing in the DSLR towel). Great I say to myself. I'm woundering if Kodak will keep up support such as firmware upgrades, and among other things. On there web sight all there pro gear has the lines ( discontinued). I don't have 4 grand to throw around. I wrote Kodak and questioned them, but of course they have not had time to re-ply back yet, as I wrote them last night. I guess Kodak was like IBM. IBM didn't think computer would take hold in homes. Did Kodak think several years ago that the pro photographer would never even think about a digital camera, or the rest of us? Maybe time to trade in. Ouch!!!! I think I'm going to have a hard time of it with that last sentence.

[jimg]

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Kodak Professional.

We understand your concerns but we basically still have our hands in the
professional camera line, just not as directly as you may be used too.
There are a number of Pro cameras that we will be making the imagers
for. we have found that that is one portion of the market we excel in
as well as the consumer digital market and as you know, its always best
to go with ones strengths, which Kodak is doing at this time.

We realize we shocked many people with this news but also realized we
launched a lot of "ships" if you will, to the introduction of many first
time innovations for Professional cameras such as, well, the first
professional digital camera to begin with. Then the introduction of
being able to transmit images via cell phone. Then the ability to
capture GPS data, Infrared capture of images on Pro Cameras, just to
name a few things.

Our decision to pull out of the manufacturing market for pro cameras
wasn't easy, and who knows, we may be back, but for now, rest assured
that we're out there in some shape or form in some other model camera
making your image capturing experience, hopefully a pleasant one.

Regards,

Andre L.
Kodak Consumer and Professional Contact Center, USA
Digital & Film Imaging Systems

http://www.kodak.com/go/professional

(This is a quote by me- jimg) Hmmmm!!!!!- So tuff cow paddies to me I guess. I think when I go to work next week at my Municipal job, I'll tell the local people I serve that all service is stoping and when problems pile up, they can just keep on useing the old service untill they can get enough money to go to the next municipalitys area and buy there service. Yea right...

[Franglais]

Hi Photo-John.
I'll try this again. I guess I'm so surprised at Kodaks moves that I hit a wrong button while typing and my re-ply to you vanished. L.O.L. I was saying that I read the report in this mornings paper about Kodak. The reason why I'm a little surprised and mad is, a little over a year ago I bought the Kodak (DCS Pro. 14n camera). Now I'm not a pro. but I wanted to start out with a good camera. The kicker is, I just got the Nov. Popular Photography magazine, and init it with a Canon camera review, it said (Kodak is throwing in the DSLR towel). Great I say to myself. I'm woundering if Kodak will keep up support such as firmware upgrades, and among other things. On there web sight all there pro gear has the lines ( discontinued). I don't have 4 grand to throw around. I wrote Kodak and questioned them, but of course they have not had time to re-ply back yet, as I wrote them last night. I guess Kodak was like IBM. IBM didn't think computer would take hold in homes. Did Kodak think several years ago that the pro photographer would never even think about a digital camera, or the rest of us? Maybe time to trade in. Ouch!!!! I think I'm going to have a hard time of it with that last sentence.

Firmware upgrade? Why do you need that? This is not a computer, nobody's going to try to hack into it over Internet. If your camera works then just use it. If you look after it then it will probably keep going for years. Think about replacing it when it stops working.

Charles

[jimg]

Firmware upgrade? Why do you need that? This is not a computer, nobody's going to try to hack into it over Internet. If your camera works then just use it. If you look after it then it will probably keep going for years. Think about replacing it when it stops working.

Charles

Sorry Charles, but either I don't quite get what you mean or maybe you got my post wrong.
Firmware for my or maybe even your camera, is really not about the computer over the internet.With my Kodak Dcs Pro.14n, I have downloaded at least 10 firmware updates from the Kodak web sight that deals with things such as, incorrect header data in the DCR file,manual mirror prerelease, long and longer exposure feature, lens optimization feature and more features that escapes me for now. These all enhanced the camera and also helped with some of the software that came with the camera. They also were from the result of many owners contributing there Ideas to Kodak for the better of the camera. The way my updates work is, I download the firmware data into my CF card from the web sight into a card reader, and then put the CF card into the camera and download the data into the camera. Now all this means to me that the camera would be kept up to date with most of the ever changing other cameras out there. With a camera such as mine or a high end Nikon or Canon, a person would want constant support from it's maker. So yes I'll be holding onto it for a while, but still looking for that hard to find perfect camera and suport.

[Photo-John]

Jim-
For what it's worth, Kodak Professional has been one of the best digital manufacturers for customer support. I'm not sure what their long-term strategy is for pro digital cameras. But I would expect and hope that support for your camera will continue long into the future.