Saturday, June 27, 2009

EK: Some free advice. Assuming the FT has it right.

See snippet for what the FT thinks. It's not pretty. At any rate, here's my free advice.

1. Spin off the print piece. The CREO folks probably have it just right. Offset is the next big thing.

2. Spin off the Kodak Gallery piece. With a little focus it should be not that hard to figure out how to unlock the value of 30,000,000 users and their hi resolution images.

3. Stop the move into desktop copiers. No margins. Too much competition.

FT.com / Lex / Technology, media & telecoms -
Kodak’s moment is over:
"Many once great companies grapple with technological obsolescence. But few destroy as much value in the process. Kodak began investing in digital photography in the mid-1990s after pioneering and then ignoring the technology to avoid cannibalising traditional film. In the past decade, however, it has ploughed 10 times as much into research and development as its current market value. To be sure, today’s chief executive Antonio Perez and predecessor Daniel Carp talked a good turnround game, luring in savvy value investors such as once-legendary Bill Miller of Legg Mason who saw an iconic company at bargain prices.

It still holds almost 15 per cent of Kodak, which has seen its shares drop 97 per cent in 10 years amid ejection from the Dow Jones Industrial Average."

No comments:

Post a Comment