Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/10/05
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Yes, Fuji closed down a lab in Sweden too, but it was a lab designed for film processing (negative and transparencies). They are still doing well in all of their small labs that can effectively handle digital. Kodak missed the boat here. There is a Swedish photography magazine that does its yearly duty of review the labs. This time it was labs doing prints from digital. They gave up on Kodak and didn't even cover them. Kodak, they explained, has been a moving target (literally). Their webpage kept moving around that they finally lost track of them. None of the editors could even figure out how to send digital files to Kodak to get them printed. So far all intents and purposes, Kodak is no longer a player on the Swedish market. All due to totally incompetent marketing, not a bad product. Fuji does well and Agfa came out on the very top when it came to quality ... and they just happened to be the cheapest too. Mind you, we're not talking about "Fuji" or "Agfa" really, but smaller enterprises and some might take their work more seriously than others. So if Kodak would just get their act together (in Europe at least) for delivering prints from digital, they wouldn't be so hard hit. I can still pass by the custom lab here in Oslo and get anything from processing and contacts (color or b/w) to large scale prints (color or b/w). It's looking tougher. I _have_ started to bunker up in 120. I'm hoping Kodak will keep at least 1 b/w film around in 35mm. My guess is that it would be Tmax, so I've gone over to it. I'm just being careful. Things are going pretty fast now and the demands shareholders make on corporations are pretty tough. Now-a-days shareholders are usually institutions with little or no concern for the core business per se, just the bottom line, and not annually, but quarterly. Daniel On Tue, 5 Oct 2004, Kenneth Frazier wrote: > This from the Guardian online: > > > Adam Jay > > Tuesday October 5, 2004 > > > > Kodak today announced 600 UK job losses and the closure of a > Nottingham factory as the world's largest photography company continued > to shift its focus towards digital cameras. > > > > The group is to shut down its photographic film finishing plant at > Annesley, near Nottingham, with the loss of 350 jobs. It will also end > some operations in Harrow, Middlesex, reducing the 1,350-strong > workforce there by 250. > > url: > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1320088,00.html > > Ken Frazier > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >