Over 130 years ago, Eastman Kodak started the photography industry. They invented the hand-held camera and captured images from the surface of the moon. The company has even been the subject of a Paul Simon song. However, all the pop culture noteworthiness can’t protect a company from the march of time, and it looks increasingly like the Kodak company won’t make it. Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the hopes of completely remaking the company from a products company to a knowledge company.
“The board of directors and the entire senior management team unanimously believe that this is a necessary step and the right thing to do for the future of Kodak,” said company chairman and CEO Antonio Perez. “Now we must complete the transformation by further addressing our cost structure and effectively monetizing non-core intellectual-property assets. We look forward to working with our stakeholders to emerge a lean, world-class, digital imaging and materials science company.”
Kodak holds a staggering 1100 patents on various things, including the digital camera (a product Kodak invented and whose patents are in every smartphone sold today). With no more Kodachrome film and very little non-digital photography in general, the writing is on the wall unless Kodak can entirely change its business model and shed some of its obligations. Here’s hoping they can turn the company into an ideas and products company, and not just the film people.
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