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And then there were two. Struggling Kodak announces that it is transforming its business structure from three segments to two that will focus on commercial interests and consumer-related products.
Kodak is restructuring to simplify its business and cut costs as it struggles to transform itself in the face of its shrinking film business.
The 131-year-old icon of American industry said Tuesday that it is creating "a new and simpler business structure designed to increase productivity, reduce cost and accelerate its transformation into a digital company that delivers sustainable profitability and creates value for its stakeholders."
Under the new structure, Eastman Kodak Co. will be reducing its business segments from three to two that will focus on its commercial business and its consumer-related business. Both segments will report to a newly created Chief Operating Office. That office will be jointly led by Philip Faraci, Kodak’s president and chief operating officer, and by Laura Quatela, who was recently named, alongside Faraci, as president and chief operating officer of Kodak. Both will report to Kodak's Chief Executive Officer Antonio M. Perez.
Faraci will focus on the commercial business and the company’s sales and regional operations, and Quatela will focus on the consumer business and certain corporate functions, Kodak said in a statement.
"As we complete Kodak’s transformation to a digital company, our future markets will be very different from our past, and we need to organize ourselves in keeping with that evolution,” Perez said.
The changes took effect on Jan. 1. No job cuts were announced as part of the restructuring and no business segments are disappearing. Previously, Kodak's business segments were divided into its traditional film and photo paper products, consumer digital imaging and graphic communications, which included printing equipment.
Kodak has been bleeding cash as it struggles to move away from a business model dependent on film to one that's based on commercial and consumer printers. Last week, Kodak said it may be kicked off the New York Stock Exchange if it cannot boost its share price over the next six months.
Kodak has been reported to be preparing for a bankruptcy reorganization filing if it can't sell the digital-imaging patents, which could fetch as much as $3 billion according to analysts. No buyers have emerged since the company started shopping the patents around in July.
In November, it reported its ninth quarterly loss in three years and said its cash reserves had fallen 10 percent in three months.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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please stay in buisness..i still shoot film...
I never thought about that...if they go out of business thousands of high school and college Photo101 classes will have to be cancelled and film develpoing will become a lost art.
Too late. One of my kids managed to open the back of my old film camera and couldnt figure out what sized batteries fit into that empty space inside. ;)
@mary52 I, too, shoot film. I'm hoping that even if Kodak does stay in business, they don't abandon film anyway as a cost-cutting measure.
You can shoot digital and make it look like film. Kodachrome is discontinued anyway. And if you want high speed no-grain image, digital is your only choice.
@Steve:
Photography is not only about taking pictures on film and using wet development. I think film going away will only make photo 101 more accessible and affordable.
CEO Antonio Perez has basically told Wall St. that the only thing he really did was change the furniture around in his office! In case you didn't know, Mr. Perez is President Obama's newest job creationist for America! He was a former CEO of Hewlett Packard and eliminated 30,000 jobs there and another 40,000 at Kodak! Kind of poor choice if you ask me. One has to wonder why Kodak's board of directors keeps this individual of over ten years of clueless ideas in charge when their stock is trading at measly 40 cents a share!
I hope better '' Kodak Moments '' are in the future for this company.
Kodak Printers are still the best deal for ordinary consumers - black AND color ink cartridges for less than $30, regular price. I had a problem with one my two printers and the company sent me a replacement part w/o charge right away. No way HP would provide that kind of service.
Do not purchase any of their printers . i had two one all in one without fax and one with fax. they don't work and customers service won't help at all. waste of money. i promise it won't work and the ink don't last. it does cost less, but you have to purchase more. so in the long run it cost more to print . i own a business and had many printer over the years , these are the worst i ever own. when i heard they were filing chapter 11 i said to myself i knew it was only time . KODAK get out the printer business.
last two digital cameras i bought where Kodak and both junk, junk, junk. Called Kodak several times but they never really helped. It was always something other than the camera, I couldn't even turn them on.Both in garbage can, they took great pictures if they worked.
It is sad to see an iconic brand stumble and fall as Kodak has. I too am nostalgic for Kodachrome, first shooting with it at 12 years old in the late 70's. I learned B&W developing at 15, also with Kodak film and supplies. But nostalgia aside, they rather wrote their fate by not seeing the future of photography going all digital. It may have been easier to ignore digital when the technology was still lame and focused only on the consumer low end, but they should have known the technology would eventually improve (it always does) to the point where it was good enough for the pros. Once the pros started jumping ship for digital, film was really dead. And they could have done a lot more with their printer and imaging businesses...
Fuji will still make film and had a great deal to do with Kodak's demise, they whored the entire market till the profits normally plowed into R&D ran dry. They also brought out the CR400, a coffin nail to HSD and a black eye to Kodak as it was their expired patent the Japanese used to create the product. The dirty secret of big companies is how inept and politicized the vertical process is, it's a high school prom all over again and as such most of the managers are glad handing idiots. As my best kodak manager a great man used to like to say "they couldn't find their own asses with two hands and a map".
I hope that Kodak figures out how to make great products again - here in the USA. When I go to the store I see Kodak CD-R disks - products from some company in India using Kodak's name under license, Kodak SD Cards, products of Lexar using the Kodak name under license, Kodak photo scanners, products of Pandigital using the Kodak name under license. Great companies don't pimp out their names. Great American names like Poloroid, Bell & Howell, Zenith, and RCA are now used by companies that have no relationship to the original company that the name was attached to. It is sad to see that happen to great American names. I hope that Kodak can restore the luster to their name - but to do that they must protect their name and only use it on great products that they themselves produce.
I wish them luck.
Kodak demise is due to American's philosophy of short term profit and short-sightedness. I was wondering a decade ago what Kodak would do in the digital age, but their high-paid management was apparently oblivious to it all. I told Kodak to create a clog-free and reliable inkjet but they didn't care to listen. Greedy and stupid bunch of good old boys screwed us all.
The picture is fading fast!