[PRCo] Not Pennsylvania Nor Trolley Related, But...

[Ken and Tracie]

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) - Eastman Kodak Co. said Thursday that it will stop 
making digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames, 
marking the end of an era for the company that brought photography to the 
masses more than a century ago.

Founded by George Eastman in 1880, Kodak was known all over the world for 
its Brownie and Instamatic cameras and its yellow-and-red film boxes. But 
the company was battered by Japanese competition in the 1980s, and was then 
unable to keep pace with the shift from film to digital technology.

The Rochester, N.Y.-based company, which filed for bankruptcy protection 
last month, said it will phase out the product lines in the first half of 
this year and instead look for other companies to license its brand for 
those products.

It's an especially poignant moment for Kodak. In 1975, using a new type of 
electronic sensor invented six years earlier at Bell Labs, a Kodak engineer 
named Steven Sasson created the first digital camera. It was a toaster-size 
prototype capturing black-and-white images at a resolution of 0.1 
megapixels.

Through the 1990s, Kodak spent some $4 billion developing the photo 
technology inside most of today's cellphones and digital devices. But a 
reluctance to ease its heavy financial reliance on film allowed rivals like 
Canon Inc. and Sony Corp. to rush into the fast-emerging digital arena. The 
immensely lucrative analog business Kodak worried about undermining was 
virtually erased in a decade by the filmless photography it invented.

Today, the standalone digital camera faces stiff competition, as smartphone 
cameras gain broader use. Kodak owns patents that cover a number of basic 
functions in many smartphone cameras. The company picked up $27 million in 
patent-licensing fees in the first half of 2011. It made about $1.9 billion 
from those fees in the previous three years combined.

Kodak sees home photo printers, high-speed commercial inkjet presses, 
workflow software and packaging as the core of its future business. Since 
2005, the company has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into new lines 
of inkjet printers. Once the digital camera business is phased out, Kodak 
said its consumer business will focus on printing.

Kodak said it's working with its retailers to ensure an orderly transition. 
The company will continue to honor product warranties and provide technical 
support for the discontinued products.

The moves are expected to result in annual savings of more than $100 million 
The company didn't say how many jobs would be eliminated as a result of the 
decision, but did say that it expects to take a charge of $30 million 
related to separation costs.