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

  • From: "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 1 Jun 2005 16:07:02 -0700

----- 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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