Kodak Who?

When you think of Kodak, your first thought might be of capturing that “Kodak Moment” with a camera and owning that visual record for a lifetime. That slogan first appeared in 1961, and became part of the "global" language, which has since found a place in the Oxford Dictionary.

Kodak’s founding by George Eastman in 1888 was a brilliant move, designed around the selling of inexpensive cameras and creating an annuity making large margins on film, paper and chemicals for years after the camera sale. They ultimately developed (no pun intended) as of 1976 as the global company synonymous with photography accounting for 90% of film and camera sales in the U.S. alone.

Their products went beyond consumer cameras like the Brownie, Instamatic and others, to the commercial photography, graphics arts market and movie industries. To support that volume of consumable sales, they created Kodak Park (now called Eastman Business Park) in Rochester, N.Y., near their headquarters. 

Enter the digital revolution, where images could be stored on media other than photographic paper, processed with chemicals. Like many new technologies in their infancy, it took years for it to gain acceptance and stabilize. While Kodak tried to make a go of it, like many other companies, they found the competing interests of their legacy business in their way. They were, however, able to continue to maintain and even expand their role in graphic arts through the manufacturing of offset and flexo plates and workflow software. The volumes and margins would never reach those of their heyday, but it gave them some room to try to decide where they should pivot to next.

Additionally, while many people don’t think of Kodak as one of the production inkjet pioneers, Kodak’s inkjet roots date back to the 1970s. In 1983 Kodak acquired Mead Digital Systems, founded in 1972, which introduced its first commercially available inkjet product in 1976. Kodak initially acquired the company as a wholly owned subsidiary then fully merged it as Diconix, introducing the first portable inkjet printer in 1984. In 1993, Diconix was acquired by Scitex, who further developed the technology and launched two Versamark production inkjet products in 2001. Kodak reacquired Scitex Digital Printing in 2004 and never looked back.

Kodak’s involvement in production inkjet didn’t stop there. While the Versamark technology and product line continues to evolve, in 2009 Kodak introduced New Stream and in 2017 Ultrastream, inkjet technology along with new lines of Prosper production inkjet products and many OEM relationships. This, in effect brought them back to their original business model, since they can now sell the hardware in the form of printheads, and supply the ink and consumables for years to come. 

Lately, Kodak has been in the news for their interest in manufacturing core pharmaceutical component chemicals. To many this seemed like an "outside play," something Kodak knew nothing about, when in reality it goes to the core of their heritage dating back to the beginning in 1888. Does that mean that Kodak is abandoning their graphic arts, movie, production inkjet and workflow software businesses? Of course not, it is just a continuation of how a manufacturing company reinvents themselves to leverage their expertise and resources to continue to evolve and grow.