[asaru]

The company has filed for bankruptcy protection.

At this point I believe it is a racing certainty the receivers will close down film production, and sooner rather than later.

This is a topic that bears discussion.

Will you be affected?

For my part, the answer has been NO for about five years. I am firmly in the Fuji camp for color prints, and Ilford will do for b&w.

Although, I must say, as regards B&W, the C41 Kodak CN film is something I'll miss.

How about you?

[Adam]

Moving this to the photo industry section.

[ChrisPlatt]

At this point I believe it is a racing certainty the receivers will close down film production, and sooner rather than later.

Don't bet on it.

Chris

[eddie1960]

Don't bet on it.

Chris

i'm with you, and in fact i think they would be more likely to sell it off as a going concern and let someone rationalize the production run process to a more modern standard of smaller runs. The name with film formulations would bring pretty decent coin I think

[gofour3]

i'm with you, and in fact i think they would be more likely to sell it off as a going concern and let someone rationalize the production run process to a more modern standard of smaller runs. The name with film formulations would bring pretty decent coin I think

I agree the film part will keep going.

Phil.

[tuco]

I've been looking for a sign if/when I should start building a stash of my Kodak usage before it's too late.

[Den]

A quote from:

(RTTNews.com) - In an expected move, Eastman Kodak Co. (EK) said Thursday it has filed for bankruptcy protection for business reorganization. The struggling camera maker has obtained a life-line of $950 million from Citigroup Inc. (C) and expects to emerge from the restructuring in 2013 as a lean, profitable, digital imaging and materials science company.

The company, along with its U.S. subsidiaries, has filed voluntary petitions for chapter 11 business reorganization in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Units outside of the U.S. are not included in the filing and are not subject to Court supervision, the photographic equipment maker said.

The fully-committed $950 million debtor-in-possession credit facility from Citigroup has an 18-month maturity. The filing followed preliminary discussions with key constituencies.

Kodak expects the planned business reorganization to bolster liquidity in the U.S. and abroad, monetize non-strategic intellectual property, fairly resolve legacy liabilities, and enable it to focus on its most valuable business lines.

The company has already made important investments in digital and materials deposition technologies, following which about 75 percent of its fiscal 2011 revenue came from digital businesses. It expects to operate normally during chapter 11.

Kodak's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Antonio Perez said, "Kodak is taking a significant step toward enabling our enterprise to complete its transformation. Now we must complete the transformation by further addressing our cost structure and effectively monetizing non-core IP assets."

The Rochester, New York-based, 131-year-old company has been struggling to sell its non-core assets to stay afloat and to transform itself into a digital company. It has exited certain traditional operations, closing 13 manufacturing plants and 130 processing labs, and has reduced workforce by 47,000 since 2003.

Kodak has already licensed out its projector patents and sold its image sensor unit to generate cash in recent months and was aiming to sell more of its non-core assets to help its raise $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion in cash by the end of 2011. It has also been trying to sell its portfolio of more than 1,100 patents since July. However, those efforts failed amid rumors of an impending bankruptcy filing.

Perez added, "Chapter 11 gives us the best opportunities to maximize the value in two critical parts of our technology portfolio: our digital capture patents, which are essential for a wide range of mobile and other consumer electronic devices that capture digital images and have generated over $3 billion of licensing revenues since 2003; and our breakthrough printing and deposition technologies, which give Kodak a competitive advantage in our growing digital businesses."

The company is currently engaged in patent disputes with many technology companies. It recently filed patent infringement suits against Apple Inc. (AAPL), HTC, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., (SSNLF.PK) and Fujifilm Corp. alleging infringement of certain Kodak patents relating to digital imaging technology.

Kodak shares closed Wednesday's trading at $0.5547, up 4.44 percent, and gained 6.36 percent further in the after-hours trading to close at $0.59. The shares have lost nearly 90 percent of its value in the past 52 weeks on the NYSE.

For comments and feedback: contact editorial@rttnews.com

RTTNews - Realtime Financial news, Economic news, Forex news, Stock Alerts, Breaking news....

[asaru]

Perez added, "Chapter 11 gives us the best opportunities to maximize the value in two critical parts of our technology portfolio: our digital capture patents, which are essential for a wide range of mobile and other consumer electronic devices that capture digital images and have generated over $3 billion of licensing revenues since 2003; and our breakthrough printing and deposition technologies, which give Kodak a competitive advantage in our growing digital businesses."

(bolding above is mine)

There you have it: Kodak will be out of film. Kodak will concentrate on sensor technology and photoreproduction.

So:

(1) Will the film be off-loaded or closed down? I think given Kodak's history and the state of the market it will be closed. That was the original focus of my topic before it was moved from the film discussion.

(2) Will the sensor repositioning affect the marketplace? Potentially very much so because it will give Kodak new focus.

(2a) Will it affect Pentax/Ricoh? And the plans for Pentax FF? My sense of Pentax's direction is that it is positioning itself as a basic mid-upper end camera, to squeeze between the Canon/Nikon upper end and the Sony/Lumix/etc. consumer product. Note the word basic: stripped away; simplified. In this its big competition is Fuji.

Given that Kodak's refocus -- if successful -- may lead to greater competition in the sensor market, this could play well for Pentax: Rikoh will have a greater choice of suppliers.

Anyway, that's my sense of it.

[eddie1960]

(bolding above is mine)

There you have it: Kodak will be out of film. Kodak will concentrate on sensor technology and photoreproduction.

So:

(1) Will the film be off-loaded or closed down? I think given Kodak's history and the state of the market it will be closed. That was the original focus of my topic before it was moved from the film discussion.

(2) Will the sensor repositioning affect the marketplace? Potentially very much so because it will give Kodak new focus.

(2a) Will it affect Pentax/Ricoh? And the plans for Pentax FF? My sense of Pentax's direction is that it is positioning itself as a basic mid-upper end camera, to squeeze between the Canon/Nikon upper end and the Sony/Lumix/etc. consumer product. Note the word basic: stripped away; simplified. In this its big competition is Fuji.

Given that Kodak's refocus -- if successful -- may lead to greater competition in the sensor market, this could play well for Pentax: Rikoh will have a greater choice of suppliers.

Anyway, that's my sense of it.

the Sensors are already gone the other patents they mention are not to do with the sold sensor division

the people who bought it are running it the same (with better management skills i hope)

there is still a viable film business (and the movie industry is still a few years from complete digital for that matter) but it needs to downsize and i thinkl that's best achieved through a new owner of the division
like the ilford model before it.

[TechGuru]

Ya, Kodak needs to work on getting into professional digital prints, as their "Kiosk" prints nothing like the behind the counter Fuji professional printer. .

BTW, many stores have dumped the Kodak Kiosk in favor of a HP Kiosk, which is still crap compared to the professional Fuji mini-lab printer.

[EyeSpy]

For the last several weeks I've shopped at Walgreens. They no longer carry film. They used to carry Kodak and Walgreens brands. This is in the Phoenix area. Just wonder if Kodak has ceased production of all film or just 35mm camera product.