The Road to Relevance: Kodak’s Post-Bankruptcy Emergence

There was a time when the Eastman Kodak Company was synonymous with photography. Back in the days when people used film-based cameras to take photos, Kodak was the brand that you bought. The company’s control over the market was so strong that it was responsible for more than 90% of all photographic film sales in the United States back in 1976. This success continued for much of the 20^th century, and it wasn’t until the 1990’s that the Rochester-based company began to crumble.

Kodak actually developed the world’s first digital camera back in 1975, however, the product was abandoned out of fear that it would threaten the company’s burgeoning photographic film business. By the time the 1990’s came along, Kodak felt it was time to embrace digital technology and, under the lead of CEO George M. C. Fisher, the company began a decade-long plan to transition to digital photography. The company pushed out a few digital products and even partnered with Apple to release two Apple QuickTake digital cameras.

Despite the implementation of this strategy, Kodak actually did very little to embrace digital photography. Kodak was facing virtually no pressure from competing technologies in its already established core business and the company’s executives believed that traditional film would live on regardless. At the time, Kodak saw little reason to make the switch to digital photography.

While Kodak continued releasing film-based cameras, Japanese companies such as Sony and Fujifilm began aggressively pushing digital photography, and despite Kodak’s dismissals, consumers began to gradually switch to this new technology. Kodak finally realized its mistake after sales began to plummet and, under the leadership of CEO Daniel Carp, the company began a rapid transition into the digital market. Using behavioral studies and clever marketing, the company managed to release some of the most innovative digital photography products of the early 2000’s.

Unfortunately, Kodak couldn’t compete with companies from Asia that could produce cameras of equal quality for a much lower cost. The company ended up losing around $60 for every digital camera that it sold. In search of new sources of revenue, the company began to produce new products such as printers and workflow software, and eventually started using litigation to score some extra cash. Despite promising growth and turnaround progress, however, Kodak eventually filed for bankruptcy back in January of 2012.

After obtaining an $950 million, 18-month credit facility from Citigroup and selling around $525 million worth of patents to technology companies such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft, Kodak emerged from bankruptcy back in September of 2013. Having shed its stockpile of legacy liabilities and exited numerous markets, the company has reimagined itself as a technology that focuses on imaging for business. Not much has been heard from Kodak in the year since then, but that’s all going to change at the Consumer Electronics Show next month.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is a massive, internationally renowned trade show that’s held in Las Vegas every January. It’s here that technology companies from around the globe come together to demonstrate the new products that they’re going to be releasing that year, and its here that Kodak is going to announce its own line of photography-centric mobile devices in partnership with Bullitt. Information is sparse, but we do know that the new line will include two smartphones, a tablet, and a connected camera.

Bullitt, the company behind Caterpillar’s line of rugged smartphones, will be the one actually producing the new smartphones. In order to differentiate Kodak’s photography-centric smartphones from similar devices on the market, the two companies will offer personalized image capturing and sharing features and remote management software. The companies also announced that the devices will be powered by the latest version of Android.

“Kodak is one of the world’s most recognizable brands. It is trusted by consumers as a marque of quality and innovation,” says Oliver Schulte, the CEO of Bullitt, in an official press release. “We’ve taken that heritage and used it to inspire a range of beautifully designed devices that will let users take great pictures and edit, share, store and print them in an instant.”

This will be the first time that Kodak has attended CES in three years and, while details remain scarce, I’m actually pretty excited to see what they have in store. Despite how far technology has come and how hard companies like Apple and Samsung try to give their smartphones some solid built-in cameras, it simply isn’t enough. Many people, myself included, want a smartphone that can truly rival digital cameras, and while numerous companies have released some decent photography-centric smartphones in the last few months, Kodak’s upcoming devices could be what we’ve been looking for.