[rollei_list] Re: 'Kodak, Don't Take My Kodachrome'

  • From: Jerry Lehrer <jerryleh@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 01 Jun 2005 19:09:43 -0700

Richard,

I still have a few prepaid Kodachrome mailers for
Long Beach, not Rochester.

Jerry

Richard Knoppow wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John Jensen" <jwjensen356@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 01, 2005 3:36 PM
> Subject: [rollei_list] Re: 'Kodak, Don't Take My Kodachrome'
>
> > Richard, it was in the early 50s (1954?, 1955?) that
> > the courts ruled that the monopoly Kodak had on
> > processing Kodachrome had to stop.  As a result of
> > that ruling, independent labs could get into the
> > business of processing Kodachrome.  If Kodak wanted to
> > stop processing Kodachrome they could have/should have
> > stopped then.  But they didn't.
> >
> > John
> >
>   I'm not sure what issues the court decided. The main one
> was that Kodak was including the price of processing in the
> price of the film. I think by that time Kodak had already
> licensed some independent labs to process Kodachrome to take
> the load off Rochester, but I am not sure. I think its
> likely that Kodak never made much money from processing. The
> film was sold as a system, much like Kodak's original box
> camera which was returned to the factory for processing and
> printing and returned loaded with fresh film.
>    I think Kodachrome is a victim of the shrinking market
> for film. Remember, that Kodak and Agfa are very large
> companies who made enormous volumes of photographic
> products. When the market for something shrinks there are a
> lot of operating costs that don't shrink, I think this is
> what all of the photo products companies are fighting.
> Kodak, at least, seems to be trying to keep some aspect of
> their original business but the pressures of having to
> return a reasonable profit to investors pretty much limits
> what management can do. Some management is simply ruthless
> about loosing parts of a company, sell them off for what can
> be gotten or simply eliminate them, take a one time charge,
> and be finished with it. Where there is a stable or
> expanding market there is reason to try to fix poorly
> performing businesses but where there is simply not much of
> a market, or it is shrinking, the problem is not a broken
> business that could expand its share but a simple lack of a
> place to sell the products no matter how well they are made
> or how well the company is run. This is a completely
> different thing in my mind from the disastrous and
> reprehensible mis-management of companies like General
> Motors or the big steel companies in the U.S. who just
> decided to shut down whole cities and move elsewhere. Those
> moves were made in an attempt to substantially reduce
> operating costs by eliminating well paid labor, this is
> something else. I wish Kodak luck in preserving their
> traditional business. Actually I also wish Ilford and Agfa
> well, but even if one or all survive they will do so in a
> different form than existed in the past.
>
> ---
> Richard Knoppow
> Los Angeles, CA, USA
> dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> ---
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