From what has been disclosed on apug.org, Kentmere will survive as an independent name as will all their products. With this purchase, Harman Technologies (Ilford) have purchased an intermediate coating line lending itself to smaller runs of special products, while kentmere on their side have merged with a major player in the B&W photography field - complete with an International Marketing Division.
"All Kentmere products" should be read as "everything Kentmere was producing at the time of aquisition"; so discontinued products will remain discontinued. So will the "third party products", which as far as I know included a repackaged ilford FP4+...
So all in all it's not salvation, but it might be survival. Since Ilford/Harman will also be producing Bergger papers, it seems to me that they are aquiring the "small players" in the field in order to make a larger unity which can better negotiate with suppliers. After all - a few years ago Ilford was a small player, ordering 10 kg of some chemical on the coattails of AGFa's 10 tonnes order. Now they are the largest buyer of that chemical in Europe, and have to hold enough sensitizer dye for the next 40 years in stock! Consolidating makes sense. You may not like it, and I certainly don't like it; but in the current situation there is no other option.
-- Ole TjugenPå Fri, 11 Jan 2008 23:43:03 +0100, skrev Dana H. Myers <dana.myers@xxxxxxxxx>:
Justin F. Knotzke wrote:On 11/01/2008, *Richard Knoppow* <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:Ilford has aquired Kentmere. The announcement appears on the Ilfordphoto web site. http://www.ilfordphoto.comNot that I don't believe you, but I can't find it on their website..Any ideas if they will keep the paper or just mothball it ?From the press release:"Following the buy-out, HARMAN is keen to stress that the Kentmere brand will remain relatively unchanged. It will continue to offer the same resin coated and fibre based monochrome papers and inkjet products, including Opaljet, whilst employing the same marketing approach."Sounds good, Dana =============================================================================================================To unsubscribe from this list, go to www.freelists.org and logon to your account (the same e-mail address and password you set-up when you subscribed,) and unsubscribe from there.
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