kodak company current kodak logo which was redesigned in 2006 1 the exterior of kodak s main headquarters in rochester ny . type public traded as nyse kodk industry digital imaging photography mobile devices predecessor the eastman dry plate company founded september 4 1888 ; 128 years ago 1888 09 04 2 founder george eastman henry a. strong headquarters rochester new york united states area served worldwide key people jeffrey j. clarke ceo james v. continenza chairman products digital imaging and photographic materials equipment and services revenue us 1.798 billion 2015 3 operating income us 2 million 2015 3 net income us 211 million 2015 3 total assets us 2.138 billion 2015 3 total equity us 103 million 2015 3 number of employees 6 500 2015 4 website www.kodak.com www.kodakalaris.com the eastman kodak company commonly known as kodak is an american technology company that concentrates on imaging products with its historic basis on photography . the company is headquartered in rochester new york united states and incorporated in new jersey . 5 it was founded by george eastman in 1888 . kodak provides packaging functional printing graphic communications and professional services for businesses around the world . its main business segments are digital printing & enterprise and graphics entertainment & commercial films . 6 7 it is best known for photographic film products . during most of the 20th century kodak held a dominant position in photographic film . the company s ubiquity was such that its tagline kodak moment entered the common lexicon to describe a personal event that demanded to be recorded for posterity . 8 kodak began to struggle financially in the late 1990s as a result of the decline in sales of photographic film and its slowness in transitioning to digital photography . 9 as part of a turnaround strategy kodak focused on digital photography and digital printing and attempted to generate revenues through aggressive patent litigation . 10 11 in january 2012 kodak filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the united states district court for the southern district of new york . 12 13 14 in february 2012 kodak announced that it would cease making digital cameras pocket video cameras and digital picture frames and focus on the corporate digital imaging market . 15 in august 2012 kodak announced the intention to sell its photographic film excluding motion picture film commercial scanners and kiosk operations as a measure to emerge from bankruptcy . 16 in january 2013 the court approved financing for kodak to emerge from bankruptcy by mid 2013 . 17 kodak sold many of its patents for approximately 525 000 000 to a group of companies including apple google facebook amazon microsoft samsung adobe systems and htc under the name intellectual ventures and rpx corporation . 18 on september 3 2013 the company emerged from bankruptcy having shed its large legacy liabilities and exited several businesses . 19 personalized imaging and document imaging are now part of kodak alaris a separate company owned by the u.k. based kodak pension plan . 20 21 on march 12 2014 it announced that the board of directors had elected jeffrey j. clarke as chief executive officer and a member of its board of directors . 22 23 contents 1 name 2 history 2.1 rivalry with fujifilm 2.2 shift to digital 2.3 new strategy 2.4 timeline 2.4.1 1880 98 2.4.2 1900 99 2.4.3 2000 09 2.4.4 2010 present 3 products and services 3.1 current 3.2 digital printing and enterprise 3.2.1 flexo printing 3.2.2 functional printing 3.2.3 enterprise professional services 3.2.4 digital printing solutions 3.2.5 consumer inkjet ink cartridges 3.3 gecf 3.3.1 graphics 3.3.2 global technical services 3.3.3 entertainment imaging and commercial film 3.3.4 motion picture and tv production 3.3.5 technical support and on site service 3.3.6 other 3.4 former 3.4.1 still film cameras 3.4.2 instant cameras 3.4.3 image sensors 3.4.4 digital cameras and video cameras 3.4.5 digital picture frames 3.4.6 kodak gallery 3.4.7 document imaging 3.4.8 photographic film and paper 3.4.9 photo kiosks 4 operations 4.1 subsidiaries 4.2 kodak research laboratories 5 notable people 5.1 presidents and ceos 5.2 scientists 6 archive donation 7 controversies 7.1 better business bureau 7.2 patent litigation 8 see also 9 references 10 bibliography 11 external links name 1900 kodak ad the letter k was a favorite of eastman s ; he is quoted as saying it seems a strong incisive sort of letter . 24 he and his mother devised the name kodak with an anagrams set . eastman said that there were three principal concepts he used in creating the name it should be short easy to pronounce and not resemble any other name or be associated with anything else . 25 history the kodak factory and main office in rochester circa 1910 from the company s founding by george eastman in 1888 kodak followed the razor and blades strategy of selling inexpensive cameras and making large margins from consumables film chemicals and paper . as late as 1976 kodak commanded 90 % of film sales and 85 % of camera sales in the u.s. 26 rivalry with fujifilm japanese competitor fujifilm entered the u.s. market via fuji photo film u.s.a. with lower priced film and supplies but kodak did not believe that american consumers would ever desert its brand . 27 kodak passed on the opportunity to become the official film of the 1984 los angeles olympics ; fuji won these sponsorship rights which gave them a permanent foothold in the marketplace . fuji opened a film plant in the u.s. and its aggressive marketing and price cutting began taking market share from kodak . fuji went from a 10 % share in the early 1990s to 17 % in 1997 . fuji also made headway into the professional market with specialty transparency films such as velvia and provia which competed successfully with kodak s signature professional product kodachrome but used the more economical and common e 6 processing machines which were standard in most processing labs rather than the dedicated machines required by kodachrome . fuji s films soon also found a competitive edge in higher speed negative films with a tighter grain structure . in may 1995 kodak filed a petition with the us commerce department under section 301 of the commerce act arguing that its poor performance in the japanese market was a direct result of unfair practices adopted by fuji . the complaint was lodged by the united states with the world trade organization . 28 on january 30 1998 the wto announced a sweeping rejection of kodak s complaints about the film market in japan . kodak s financial results for the year ending december 1997 showed that company s revenues dropped from 15.97 billion in 1996 to 14.36 billion in 1997 a fall of more than 10 % ; their net earnings went from 1.29 billion to just 5 million for the same period . kodak s market share declined from 80.1 % to 74.7 % in the united states a one year drop of five percentage points that had observers suggesting that kodak was slow to react to changes and underestimated its rivals . 29 30 31 31 although from the 1970s both fuji and kodak recognized the upcoming threat of digital photography and although both sought diversification as a mitigation strategy fuji was more successful at diversification . 27 shift to digital the kodak k logo was introduced in 1971 . the version seen here with the kodak name in a more modern typeface was used from 1987 until the logo s discontinuation in 2006 . 1 although kodak developed a digital camera in 1975 the first of its kind the product was dropped for fear it would threaten kodak s photographic film business . 32 33 in the 1990s kodak planned a decade long journey to move to digital technology . ceo george m. c. fisher reached out clarification needed to microsoft and other new consumer merchandisers . apple s pioneering quicktake consumer digital cameras introduced in 1994 had the apple label but were produced by kodak . the dc 20 and dc 25 launched in 1996 . overall though there was little implementation of the new digital strategy . kodak s core business faced no pressure from competing technologies and as kodak executives could not fathom a world without traditional film there was little incentive to deviate from that course . consumers gradually switched to the digital offering from companies such as sony . in 2001 film sales dropped which was attributed by kodak to the financial shocks caused by the september 11 attacks . executives hoped that kodak might be able to slow the shift to digital through aggressive marketing . 34 under daniel carp fisher s successor as ceo kodak made its move in the digital camera market with its easyshare family of digital cameras . kodak spent tremendous resources studying customer behavior finding out that women in particular loved taking digital photos but were frustrated in moving them to their computers . this key unmet consumer need became a major opportunity . once kodak got its product development machine started it released a wide range of products which made it easy to share photos via pcs . one of their key innovations was a printer dock where consumers could insert their cameras into this compact device press a button and watch their photos roll out . by 2005 kodak ranked no. 1 in the u.s. in digital camera sales that surged 40 % to 5.7 billion . 34 despite the high growth kodak failed to anticipate how fast digital cameras became commodities with low profit margins as more companies entered the market in the mid 2000s . 35 in 2001 kodak held the no. 2 spot in u.s. digital camera sales behind sony but it lost 60 on every camera sold while there was also a dispute between employees from its digital and film divisions . 36 the film business where kodak enjoyed high profit margins fell 18 % in 2005 . the combination of these two factors resulted in disappointing profits overall . 34 its digital cameras soon became undercut by asian competitors that could produce their offerings more cheaply . kodak had a 27 percent market leading share in 1999 that dwindled to 15 percent by 2003 . 36 in 2007 kodak was no. 4 in u.s. digital camera sales with a 9.6 percent share and by 2010 it held 7 percent in seventh place behind canon sony nikon and others according to research firm idc . 37 also an ever smaller percentage of digital pictures were being taken on dedicated digital cameras being gradually displaced in the late 2000s by cameras on cellphones smartphones and tablets . new strategy kodak headquarters in rochester new york united states kodak then began a strategy shift previously kodak had done everything in house but ceo antonio p rez shut down film factories and eliminated 27 000 jobs as it outsourced its manufacturing . 38 p rez invested heavily in digital technologies and new services that capitalized on its technology innovation to boost profit margins . 34 he also spent hundreds of millions of dollars to build up a high margin printer ink business to replace shriveling film sales . kodak s ink strategy rejected the razor and blades business model used by the dominant market leader hewlett packard in that kodak s printers were expensive but the ink was cheaper . 39 as of 2011 these new lines of inkjet printers were said to be on verge of turning a profit although some analysts were skeptical as printouts had been replaced gradually by electronic copies on computers tablets and smartphones . 39 home photograph printers high speed commercial inkjet presses workflow software and packaging were viewed as the company s new core businesses with sales from those four businesses projected to double to nearly 2 billion in revenue in 2013 and account for 25 percent