Eastman Kodak Company today outlined its next steps toward a successful emergence from Chapter 11 reorganization as a company primarily focused on commercial, packaging and functional printing solutions and enterprise services. Accordingly, the company has initiated sale processes for its market-leading Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses.
Kodak believes that the sale of these assets, as well as continued cost-reduction initiatives, curtailment of its legacy liabilities, and the monetization of the company’s digital imaging patent portfolio, will be significant milestones toward completing the company’s reorganization and emergence from Chapter 11 during 2013.
“The initiation of a process to sell the Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses is an important step in our company’s reorganization to focus our business on the commercial markets and enable Kodak to accelerate its momentum toward emergence,” said Antonio M. Perez, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “In addition, we continue our initiatives to reduce our cost structure and streamline our operating models in an effort to return the company to profitability.”
In which an iconic company decides it wants to become just another B2B company.
» The layoffs follow a recent settlement between Olympus and former-CEO Michael Woodford, who sued the company for unfair-dismissal following his firing in October 2011. Woodford is responsible for unearthing massive investor losses by the company, $1.5 billion to be exact, and is expected to receive just over $15 million after settling the matter out of court. According to local media, Olympus plans to cut most of the 2,500 jobs from its camera-making division.
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Speaking of fairly innovative things, the Lytro — launched in full today after a tease a few months back that got people excited — just turned the idea of a camera totally on its head. Those long, rectangular things? That’s the camera. No need to put it up to your eye, because, being a light-field camera, it can focus the shot after the fact. And the price point? A fairly cheap $399. That’s what we call radical reinvention, friends. Is this company the Kodak of the 21st century, or something else? We’re totally curious.
» Wait wait, how sad is this? Kodak, one of the great companies of the 20th century — and probably the one most deserving of a Paul Simon tune — has been relegated to patent troll status. Kodak claims that they hold the patent to an image-preview feature commonly used in cameraphones. The company has lost half of its market value in the past year.
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