Talk:Kodak

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Kodak buildings in Australia

When establishing their presence in Australia, many of their regional offices/labs took the form of buildings of a distinctive shape - relatively narrow and tall for their width (3-5 storeys). (see Brisbane, Sydney, Hobart). I'll start looking for any useful references about this, in case it is of interest/relevance to this article, but thought I'd mention it here in case anyone knows more - is it unique to Australian sites? The Hobart site in particular recently had a development application for conversion to apartments so I will scour that for any historical info. -- Chuq (talk) 14:04, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

kodak Photocopiers and LED printers

Kodak had quite a big range of photocopiers as well as some very funky laser printers (that used this really smart LED array). IBM did an OEM and sold them as 3827, 3828 and 3829. I added a main section on the photocopiers, but more details would be great....AVandewerdt (talk) 03:31, 8 November 2021 (UTC)

Kodak branded led TVs in India

Kadak or someone who licenced the brand is selling cheap led tvs in India under the Kodak brand name in high volume. There is no information about it on this wiki page. Reference: Go to amazon.in or flipkart.com and look for Kodak TVs. 103.238.104.243 (talk) 20:45, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

It’s a brand license deal. Doesn’t look like Kodak are contributing anything but their brand name. Check this out:

https://kodaktv.in/about/

“ We were created in 2016 out of the exclusive brand licensing agreement between our parent company, Super Plastronics Pvt Ltd. (SPPL), and the Eastman Kodak Company, USA. Holding the exclusive licensee in India, SPPL gradually escalated its innovation from CRT TVs to Smart LED TVs.” AVandewerdt (talk) 20:57, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts

Does anyone have recent information on the relationship between Kodak and KKR? The most recent articles I could find were about the resignation of KKR-appointed members of Kodak's board in 2011. I don't see any information in news archives on what happened during and after the bankruptcy proceedings. Rocfan275 (talk) 21:43, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Is Kodak selling film?

My impression is that Kodak, the corporation, sold its film manufacturing operation to a separate independent entity, Alaris, with a deal to use the Kodak brand and trademark.

The article text makes it sound like Kodak is selling film through a division called Alaris, but I have seen no source for that. Anyone know which is correct? SPECIFICO talk 19:59, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Kodak film brands have been one of the more confusing topics to follow since the bankruptcy proceedings. Kodak Alaris is an independent company which was spun off from Eastman Kodak in 2012. Kodak Alaris was given control over Kodak's consumer film and paper distribution (as shown on their website) as well as most overseas manufacturing facilities, while Eastman Kodak retained the distribution rights for motion picture film (as shown on their website) and Eastman Business Park, where most film is manufactured. Kodak Alaris has since sold most (if not all) of its own film manufacturing facilities to other companies. At least some of their consumer film is manufactured by Eastman Kodak in Rochester, as seen in this press release for the announcement of Ektachrome's return. Eastman Kodak and Kodak Alaris both sell film under the Kodak brand.

TL;DR Kodak-brand motion picture film stock is solely manufactured and distributed by Eastman Kodak. Kodak-brand consumer film is partially manufactured by Eastman Kodak and solely distributed by Kodak Alaris. Any ambiguities should be corrected in the article. Rocfan275 (talk) 01:08, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

From what I have seen, Kodak manufactures motion picture film, but all of the still film is produced and distributed by the independent Alaris entity. Is that your understanding, or if not do you have a secondary source that states that the still film is actually manufactured by the Kodak corporation? Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 01:37, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

There are an abundance of secondary sources that Eastman Kodak still manufactures still film, such as this article from WXXI last year, but otherwise yes. Rocfan275 (talk) 01:49, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. If you are so inclined, I think it would be helpful to clarify this in the article text. My impression is still that Alaris is manufacturing still film elsewhere. I'm surprised that the mothballed US factory can be brought back after a hiatus. SPECIFICO talk 02:07, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Weight of coverage in lede seems quite backward

Right now, the lede of this article is about 440 words. Of that, about 120 words are devoted to the 100 or more years where Kodak was the dominant photographic products company and an everyday household name in American life, and about 320 words are used to detail all the troubles Kodak has had in the 25 years or so since those days ended. This ratio seems almost exactly backwards to me. The most important thing for the lede to convey is what Kodak once was, not what it is now. The lede as it stands now does not do that. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:58, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree. Also , the past 25 years have been spent making a adtaggering and uninterrupted series of bad decisions. Not sure how to find sources that discuss that. SPECIFICO talk 00:23, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Kodak's decline in the 2000s has been used as a case study in business textbooks and journals. I have used one, Contemporary Strategy Analysis by Robert Grant, as a source in the article. Others exist which I don't have access to. Rocfan275 (talk) 00:33, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

I have modified the lede to better summarize Kodak's history. Rocfan275 (talk) 03:52, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Operations

The operations section is very incomplete and does not provide information which is particularly useful to the reader. A list of Kodak's subsidiaries as of 2020 can be found in this SEC filing; I have looked into these companies and all of them appear to be international divisions of Kodak, shells of defunct subsidiaries, or otherwise unnoteworthy. I believe there are two options which make sense for this section:

1. Have this section cover former operations and subsidiaries. Kodak had many facilities around the world which have been written about in secondary sources and some have their own Wikipedia articles already.
2. Delete the section and incorporate the material on Kodak Research Laboratories into the History section.

Rocfan275 (talk) 01:08, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

I have updated the operation section and listed some current subsidiaries for which there is secondary coverage. Rocfan275 (talk) 13:30, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Komstar and Optistar Systems

There is no mention here of the Kodak Komstar Microfilm/Microfiche system, and the later Optistar system, which was a document storage system based on the Komstar system, but stored the information on large, glass laserdiscs. The system contributed to the bankruptcy and downfall of Kodak, as they invested heavily into the project, but most companies were not buying the system. The Optistar system sold during the mid-to-late 1990's, and was meant for legal and financial document storage. It could format to any form type, and had a complete software package based on the Komstar indexing system that allowed also for retrieval and print by marked values on the page. Kodak stopped support and production on the Optistar system sometime around 2005, and all service was outsourced. The media also became hard to obtain, as Kodak had retained the rights to the Optistar disk design, so no third-party producers of the medium ever developed.

I worked with both systems back in the 1990's, and although the retrieval time on the Optistar was much faster than searching microfiche, any time that a disk had to be exchanged for one in the current storage in order to retrieve an older file, there had to be an operator present to remove and replace the laser disk manually, as there was a limited storage on the device, and there was no auto-loading feature outside of the actual device cabinet. The Kodak website only makes brief mention of these, but Optistar was a bit ahead of its time, although it could have been designed to be a bit better, especially when it came to the footprint of the device itself. The Optistar was smaller than a full microfiche printer and duplicator, but not by much. The storage cabinets only stored up to 50 disks, which were all in their own aluminum cases, and the disks could not be loaded into the Optistar without the aluminum casing. Some flaws in the cases caused the media to get scratched during storage and retrieval, and even removing the disk in the case from the Optistar system had to be done gingerly, or the disks would crack or even shatter. 2001:1998:3500:4A:0:0:0:544 (talk) 21:19, 6 April 2024 (UTC)