Kodak

[David Luttmann]

Looks like restructuring lawyers were hired this afternoon:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...167627950.html

[JC Kuba]

You would think at some point they would stop giving away million dollar golf prizes.

[Marko]

It appears that those "restructuring" lawyers are the Jones Day law firm. They represented Lehman Bros. and Chrysler in their "restructuring" relatively recently.

[David Luttmann]

It's starting to feel like we'll have Fuji for color and Ilford for B&W. Not that it would be a bad thing....but I find it hard to believe that Kodak could vanish.

[Drew Wiley]

Unlikely they'll vanish. Even bankrupty is unlikely to do that. And just when you think
the sky is falling, bargain hunters will be lurking like vultures, hopefully with fresh capital and new ideas. I've seen several mfgs corps recently rescued from the brink;
and the best part of it was, the first thing they did after reincorporation was can the bright-eyed bushey-tailed mgt which screwed things up in the first place.

[Peter York]

the best part of it was, the first thing they did after reincorporation was can the bright-eyed bushey-tailed mgt which screwed things up in the first place.

Agreed. Kodak's management has been pathetic for a long time. The company is long due for a serious restructuring, with or without bankruptcy. Printers? Really?

[Ivan J. Eberle]

Half a recession ago, I opined that Kodak might be deemed TBTF and get a bailout.

Defense Dept/black-ops satellite sensor business could still be important enough to preserve.

A decade ago there was only Kodak space-based telescope sensors (sensors that were fly-cut, same as backlit.)

[Drew Wiley]

Ivan - I still find it spooky that our natl security would throw all its eggs into one basket and depend strictly on satellite survelliance with its susceptibility for some
kind of hacker attack or industrial espionage sabotage, which indeed is going on
and being counterattacked even at this very moment. But that doesn't mean our
various survelliance agency don't have any backup. For all I know, they might have
significant stockpiles of suitable aerial camera film, and almost certainly still have
the planes and special cameras and enlargers to do it. I really don't know the current status of all this, but I do know that just five years ago the NSA was running
parallel systems, with full analog film-to-enlarger output. Each system has different inherent benefits. Richly detailed true-color 9" aerial film is far better for getting a
big scene up on the wall to be reviewed quickly and spontaneously. After that, a
different set of eyes specially trained to focus satellites on those specific features warranting futher review. It's just like those big telescopes which had a little telescope mounted to them to facilitate aiming at the right area. You need both.

[Ivan J. Eberle]

Umm... Drew? You do know that hybrid film-to-scanner process was invented by the aerial mapping guys, right? There was more resolution to be had with PMT scanners than enlargers. This goes back to about the Cold War/Vietnam era and 9" wide roll film Corona down-looking telescope satellite-- which dropped film canisters out of orbit (parachute deployed to be snatched mid-air by a C-130 before it hit the ground.)

[Drew Wiley]

First of all, Ivan, this has less to do with alleged resolution than the ability to put a
big image in front of a group of Generals and so forth, and give them the ability to
see terrain in a mode familar to them. Just try geological mapping or rapid identification of features with something like Google Earth - it's hell. Aerial photos
from even the 1930's are easier in the sense of spontaneous common-sense recognition of what's going on on the ground. For serious satellite analysis you need
specialists. Second, the kind of lenses and even enlarging equip these agencies use
is unlike anything the public or even a well-funded private photo lab has. So don't
talk about resolution. My late brother was one of those folks who contended that some of the spectacular advances in film etc marketed by Kodak for the Pro photo
market were merely declassified military films from technology already at least a
couple of decades old. From the instances when I've actually held classified prints
I would regard this as a conservative statement. I've never seen the film(s) per se,
but do know the contractor for some of the lenses, and have held classified nuke
test prints from the 50's which were way way more advanced in color accuracy,
detail, latitude, etc than anything the public had access to. The shots since released
to the public from their archives seem deliberately dumbed down, just like certain
survelliance shots I've seen from the 90's. These guys have a lot up their sleeves,
in all kinds of arenas.