A question on R&D......

[alarickc]

But how many are active? That's the number you need to look at, those that actively post, subtract the classified posters' numbers and that's closer to the true number, any mods have that info?


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

Not to mention that APUG doen't encompass all of the traditional photography comunity. The real key is that Ilford still sells film and paper to at least tens of thousands of people. Even if only a relitvly small fraction of them contribute, that's still huge.

[David Brown]

But how many are active?

This aspect of apug's membership has come up many times before. IIRC, there are probably only a few hundred active at any one time, and "active" is relative.

At one time, we were able to access the membership list - no longer possible, I believe. Back when the membership list was live, you could sort it by any number of fields, including the number of posts made by a member. It was astonishing how many had never made any posts at all! It was a significantly large percentage. Then there was another significant percentage who had made only one post and were never heard from again. Add to this the number that are members only; i.e.; those that have not ponied up for a subscription, and the number of active subscribers is not large. I'm sure Sean can attest to this. That was the reason for my reaction earlier. Sorry to the OP ...

However, this is getting off on a tangent to some extent. I agree with Ken that Ilford has a good business plan in place and they've addressed why they do and do not market certain products many times before.

Cheers, y'all.

[Diapositivo]

Ilford is a well known brand and the firm producing the product is certainly well known to banks. If and when a well-established firm needs to raise new capital to finance some new endeavour, the normal way to do it is to borrow capital from a bank, some venture capitalists, an investment fund, etc.

I tend to think to Kickstarter as the kind of financing for the genius working in his basement, having a new idea for a new potato-peeler or cork-screw, and having difficulties in finding a financial intermediary who would listen to him. Basically, people who don't have a working relation with financial intermediaries.

[desertratt]

My experience with Kickbottom is that if you don't have the funding they won't help much. In my opinion it's mostly cardboard, smoke and mirrors. The funding comes from the project not the face time it gets on their website. Of course I could be wrong but that's how it appears to me after some interface with them.

[StoneNYC]

Ilford is a well known brand and the firm producing the product is certainly well known to banks. If and when a well-established firm needs to raise new capital to finance some new endeavour, the normal way to do it is to borrow capital from a bank, some venture capitalists, an investment fund, etc.

I tend to think to Kickstarter as the kind of financing for the genius working in his basement, having a new idea for a new potato-peeler or cork-screw, and having difficulties in finding a financial intermediary who would listen to him. Basically, people who don't have a working relation with financial intermediaries.

I agree but kickstarter is how TIP started... (Impossible Project) and they used it for their new iPhone Polaroid printer thing. So the model does work for some business


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

[alarickc]

I agree that Ilfords current model is great. It's what's allowed them to maintain their product line relitvly unchanged, which is amazing. But we're in a new era, their model doesn't seem to let them introduce new products with the same free hand they had in the past. I'm not saying that Kicksarter specifically is the answer(It's simply a name that came to mind). What if they did something like Stone said and made a more transparent group-buy system? Imagine if it was an option on their website to put in orders for currently unavailable products(think sheet pan f or coated glass plates) and when enough orders are in a run is made. They could have a little progress bar to show how close an order is to going through, maybe even setting up email alerts if a project you're following is getting close to going through. I'm just saying that if Ilford is as serious as they seem about keeping as many forms of B&W traditional photography alive they should look into some alternative funding models for certain items. We've been told that the current model won't allow for IR, instead of letting it die, why not look for another model? Why use only one buisness model for everything? You dont have to use group funding for already established and safe product lines. I don't think anyone is suggesting kickstarting a run of 35mm HP5.....

[AgX]

I agree but kickstarter is how TIP started... (Impossible Project) and they used it for their new iPhone Polaroid printer thing. So the model does work for some business

Impossible started being backed by a classic investment company.

[StoneNYC]

Impossible started being backed by a classic investment company.

OK, well I know they are using kickstarter now...

[StoneNYC]

I agree that Ilfords current model is great. It's what's allowed them to maintain their product line relitvly unchanged, which is amazing. But we're in a new era, their model doesn't seem to let them introduce new products with the same free hand they had in the past. I'm not saying that Kicksarter specifically is the answer(It's simply a name that came to mind). What if they did something like Stone said and made a more transparent group-buy system? Imagine if it was an option on their website to put in orders for currently unavailable products(think sheet pan f or coated glass plates) and when enough orders are in a run is made. They could have a little progress bar to show how close an order is to going through, maybe even setting up email alerts if a project you're following is getting close to going through. I'm just saying that if Ilford is as serious as they seem about keeping as many forms of B&W traditional photography alive they should look into some alternative funding models for certain items. We've been told that the current model won't allow for IR, instead of letting it die, why not look for another model? Why use only one buisness model for everything? You dont have to use group funding for already established and safe product lines. I don't think anyone is suggesting kickstarting a run of 35mm HP5.....

Oh that's great, progress bar, I like it! And I agree, IR yum!

[Simon R Galley]

Dear alarickc

Firstly, apologies for the delay in replying I have been away on business. Thanks for your suggestions, encouragement and positive thoughts.

Whilst we are a small company, due to our positive history since forming HARMAN technology Limited eight years ago we are able to fund our R&D and product development programmes, the crucial question is what we fund and what we R&D ?

Our monochrome photo business is our first love, is the largest part of the business and is our number one priority, but we do lots of other things such as anti-microbial silver, specialist thin layer coating specialist scientific coatings, ink jet etc etc. R&D also work a great deal on finding alternative raw materials, chemicals and processes.

We have always engaged when people have asked us about new or replacement 'photographic' products......but we make more Mono products than all the other manufacturers put together, well in excess of 2,400 SKU's and as I have always said, our intention is to keep every product that is currently in production...in production : Period.

Our whole manufacturing systems have been changed, upgraded and refined to achieve this key company objective, and for us to continue to achieve this.

One of the real difficulties about making and developing 'new' products is the tendency of the 'audience' or customer base is that when you are passionate about a product, or a way of doing something is to presume that every one is else is and that a 'market' must therefore exist, it probably does, the question is, is that a viable market based on the manuafcturing and quality systems of a highly sophisticated and complex manufacturing process that has 'medical' levels of QC.

Lets take 220... everyone would love to see it back, us included, trouble is it will never come back because it will never make money.

Why ? 220 film by m2 was less than 5.00% of roll film sold ( by us ), so 5 rolls of 220 for every 95 rolls of 120. We could have bought a new machine to do 220 we even had it costed, over £ 300 K we would never have recouped that investment and we would have had to increase our inventory, and then every retailer would have to be sold 220, and what do you think a retailer would say, no I cannot hold it in stock if sales are 5.00% of 120 film sales. So even if we had done it 220 rolls would cost 3 x what a 120 roll would cost, thats why 220 is never coming back, from anyone.

We just bought a cassette making line, for 35mm, why, because we needed to secure a future supply of 35mm cassettes, we can make money, so we bought it. We may be passionate about Black and White, and we are, but we are in business first and foremost.

IR film is the same, we know how to make it, many APUGGERS would buy it, most film users would know what it was and the effect you could get by using it, and even with our low m2 coating capabilities we would have to throw away half of what we coated, as it would go out of date, and before you come back.... you cannot preserve IR emulsions by freezing, they degrade anyway ( slower...but they still degrade) we estimated a selling cost at about $ 16.00 per 35mm 36 exp roll instead of $ 8.00 for SFX, SFX would need to be withdrawn. You may well pay $ 16 per roll, 90% will not.

I'm sure we don't always get it correct, I'm sure we have missed opportunities, the management board of HARMAN discuss new products and potential new products at least every month. As you know we just re-launched single use camera's, that was actually quite a risk and involved a significant investment.

So, we will always listen, we will always look, we may even start a project, we will even take a 'calculated' risk. We may not do something when we should... but what we will always do is be totally dedicated to analog photography, analog photographers, the art, artisanship, and the preservation for the future of film photograhy and silver gelatin photo papers.

Simon ILFORD Photo / HARMAN technology Limited :