[PRCo] Re: Kodak

Sat Nov 3 10:00:18 EDT 2007

I 've taken more than 80,000 slide photos over the past 50 years, but last 
Fall I bit the bullet and started using a digital camera. I realize that 
even the highest megapixel digital cameras don't approach the resolution of 
slide film (I have a report that says that ASA100 slide film has resolution 
equivalent to 30 megapixels), but I've really gotten used to using a digital 
camera in the past year, and now I'm taking 2-3X more photos per month than 
I did with the chemical cameras.

Last week I realized that I haven't taken a film photo in nearly a year, so 
I checked my 35mm SLR and found that it contained a roll of slide film with 
12 exposures made at the end of 2006.  So I snapped off the remaining 24 
exposures around the neighborhood (the leaves on the trees are just starting 
to turn here), and took the film to the photo store for processing before it 
expires.  While there I asked if they still sell much slide film, and the 
store manager pointed to the film rack on the wall - not a single roll of 
slide film was in it, and only about 15 rolls of print film.

He also asked if I take railroad photos.  I was surprised by his question 
and answered yes. He said that most of the slide film they've sold in recent 
years has been to railroad photographers.

Bob 11/3/07
-----------------------------
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Holland" <PRCoPCC at P-R-Co.com>
To: "- 1714 PRCo__WP__JTC -" <pittsburgh-railways at lists.dementia.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2007 4:50 AM
Subject: [PRCo] Kodak

> This has been mentioned here before -- Digital vs. Film:::::::
>
>
>
> """Digital PROFITS--[emphasis added] surged to $82 million from $28
> million..."""
>
>
>  Eastman Kodak Posts 3Q Profit, Sales Dip
>
> By BEN DOBBIN, AP Business Writer
>
> Thursday, November 1, 2007
>
> (11-01) 14:42 PDT Rochester, N.Y. (AP) --
>
> Eastman *Kodak* Co., rounding the final bend in a four-year digital
> overhaul, swung to a $37 million profit in the third quarter Thursday as
> digital revenue almost tripled and wider profit margins overshadowed a
> slight drop in overall sales.
>
> The photography products maker earned the equivalent of 13 cents a share
> in the July-September quarter, mirroring a loss of $37 million, or 13
> cents a share, a year earlier when it also took hefty charges.
>
> Sales eased to $2.58 billion from $2.60 billion in last year's third
> quarter.
>
> Excluding one-time restructuring costs of $96 million, or 33 cents a
> share, operating profits came to $128 million, or 46 cents a share. On
> average, analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial forecast a profit of 27
> cents a share on sales of $2.49 billion. The earnings estimates
> typically exclude one-time items.
>
> *Kodak* shares fell 90 cents, or 3.1 percent, to close at $27.76 Thursday.
>
> Digital profits surged to $82 million from $28 million as sales rose 1
> percent to $1.123 billion. In contrast, earnings from film, paper and
> other traditional, chemical-based products slumped from $110 million to
> $91 million as sales plunged 16 percent to $986 million.
>
> *Kodak* said gross profit margin rose to 26.4 percent for the quarter,
> compared with 25.1 percent a year earlier. It also reported a lower debt
> level of $1.63 billion at the end of the quarter versus $2.78 billion at
> the end of 2006.
>
> "In my view, all the pieces are coming together," *Kodak*'s chief
> executive, Antonio Perez, said in a conference call with analysts. "We
> have created with all this work a much more cost-effective business
> model .... from which I believe we can launch and sustain profitable
> growth."
>
> Ulysses Yannas, a broker with Buckman, Buckman & Reid in New York,
> thinks *Kodak*'s transformation is "coming to a successful end" with
> increasingly profitable digital businesses "now taking over from film.
> They've survived the restructuring not as a second-rate company but as a
> first-rate company. That's the important part."
>
> But analyst Shannon Cross of Cross Research in Short Hills, N.J.,
> cautioned that operating profits in the quarter were driven by
> "leveraging cost-cutting in the film business" and one-time royalty
> payments from digital-camera technology.
>
> "It's still difficult to determine what the long-term, core operating
> profit of this company will be because ... we're not going to really
> know for a couple of years the scope of the investments they're making
> right now in things like inkjet printers and CMOS (image sensors in
> digital cameras)."
>
> The company reiterated its guidance for 2007 operating earnings of $300
> million to $400 million.
>
> In 2003, *Kodak* acknowledged its analog businesses were sliding
> irreversibly and outlined a strategy to become a digital front runner in
> photography and commercial printing by 2008. It embarked on a nearly $3
> billion shopping spree but also began closing film, paper and other
> raw-materials plants around the world.
>
> Shifting from a shrinking film business into the highly competitive
> digital arena has proved costly. *Kodak* has piled up nearly $3.3
> billion in restructuring charges and accumulated $2.1 billion in net
> losses over the last 12 quarters — nine of which ended in deficits.
>
> In February, the photography pioneer said it was eliminating 3,000 more
> jobs, raising its planned tally of layoffs to 28,000 to 30,000 since
> 2004. But the company said Thursday that the layoff count will actually
> end up between 27,000 and 28,000.
>
> By year-end, its work force could slip to around 34,000, less than half
> what it was at the end of 2002.
>
> Revenues from consumer digital imaging products rose 1 percent in the
> quarter to $1.23 billion, helped by a 16 percent jump in sales of
> cameras, retail kiosks and other digital products but offset by its
> costly foray into a high-margin inkjet-printer market dominated by
> Hewlett Packard Co. *Kodak* is aiming to sell a half-million inkjet
> printers this year and reach $1 billion in sales by 2010.
>
> Graphic communications revenues rose 5 percent to $928 million, driven
> by improved sales of digital plates and software.
>
> In the first nine months of the year, *Kodak* earned $461 million, or
> $1.60 a share, compared with a loss of $617 million, or $2.15 a share,
> in the first three quarters of 2006. But sales fell to $7.2 billion from
> $7.57 billion — reflecting the $2.35 billion sale in April of its
> 110-year-old health-imaging business.
>
> ___
>
> On the Net:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/24uskl
> *
> *
>
> http://www.*kodak*.com <http://www.kodak.com>
>
>
>
> ^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
> .
> .
> Jim Holland
> .
> Studying Pittsburgh Railways Company (PRCo)
> .
> ..............................From 1930 -- 1950
> .
> Pennsylvania Trolley Museum (PTM)
> .
> http://www.pa-trolley.org/
> .
> N.M.R.A.
> .
> http://www.nmra.org/
>
> 