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Here, Kodak, Kodak

TORONTO April 30, 2013. “Dat your Kodak?”, asked Quebecois farmer Plouffe who lived on his farm across the road from my friend Yves Tessier up in rural La Chute Quebec. It was not a Kodak that I had with me that day in the 1960s, but to the older generation in La Belle Province the words “Kodak” and “camera” are synonymous.

In the Globe this morning was this headline: “Kodak hands over camera-film business to creditors”.  This transaction with the Kodak Pension Plan in the UK was announced yesterday. It is said to include the Document Imaging line which was already under tentative consideration by Brother Industries. The deal with KPP helps to offset the 2.8 billion dollars Kodak is said to owe its British pensioners.

Once Kodak emerges from bankruptcy, it will be a company with one dimension – that of printing equipment and services to other companies. My Kodak printer/scanner is an  orphan as Kodak discontinued desktop printing last September.  Digital patents have been sold off to Apple, Google, Microsoft and others in a done deal.

So, will Kodak, like the Cheshire cat of Alice in Wonderland fame, fade until only the grin remains… ?

NB. A reader reminded me that Eastman has licensed “Kodak”, its trademark name in cameras. It remains to be seen whether JK Imaging will maintain the quality and integrity of the Kodak name. Their new digital cameras badged as Kodak are due this year, and one model has already been released – in China.
“Actually, Kodak will still be a name on cameras…they joined up with JK Imaging to produce a Micro Four Thirds camera with the Kodak brand name on it.  This was news back in January: http://mirrorlesscentral.com/kodak-to-produce-micro-43-camera/“