[Leica] Kodak in trouble? What does this mean for Leica?

[kcarney1 at cox.net (Ken Carney)]

On 9/29/2011 5:05 PM, tedgrant at shaw.ca wrote:
> Paul Roark OFFERED:
> Subject: Re: [Leica] Kodak in trouble? What does this mean for Leica?
>
>
>>>> Sad to see a great company go down.<<<<<<<<<
>
> Hi Paul,
> Not the least bit sorry, nor sad! :-( As KODAK made thousands upon 
> thousands of dollars from me alone during the past 61 years as a 
> working professional photographer. Like buying a thousand rolls of 
> film at a time and a month later back for another thousand! Not to 
> forget the many thousands of pro's they made hundreds of thousands 
> from because they were considered "THE" product supplier to the world 
> in gear and accessories. due to their film and paper purchases!
>
> If it goes down? It's due to bad judgments at the beginning of 
> digital, atrocious management decisions and whatever goes along during 
> those first years of digital flying about like a rocket driven sled 
> out of control; blowing by all the old fart management people still 
> basking in the warmth of the past eons of film, paper & chemicals. 
> That's what is sad!
>
> If one feels bad, it must be for  the thousands of "worker bees" who 
> became unemployed due to bad management decisions! Super top end 
> management people even though being out of work, will have been privy 
> to wonderful re-tirement programmes, so not likely any  problem for 
> them to survive!
>
> When the digital magic began, too many companies were still being  run 
> by "old farts" totally out of the modern day world loop......... "AND 
> CERTAINLY NO IDEA HOW FAST AND OVER POWERING DIGITAL WOULD BECOME!" 
> Weren't we all in that circle of not realizing in a very short time it 
> would become "the new photography era?"
>
> Even when it started to become obvious digital was a high speed horse 
> traveling on a rocket with customer demands, many of the big companies 
> never moved fast enough still believing the "digital fad was just 
> that.... "a fad!"  Little did they and we know!
>
> cheers,
> Dr.ted
>
>
>
>
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>
I've always been a little surprised at how quickly digital became 
dominant.  I probably shouldn't be.  For years I have managed the 
library at our accounting firm.  The annual library cost was always 
somewhere around $50-60,000, and it still is, but - over the years we 
are now down to only two treatises in print, really obscure ones with 
probably only a few hundred subscribers if that.   The decorator thought 
we ought to keep a lot of the books and shelves, so it would sort of 
look like we know what we're doing (her words).

Ken