How did kodak end up where it is?

[Felinik]

Steve Jobs was a jerk, and despite this fact, his company is the most valuable in the world, and Apple makes the best personal computers, laptops, tablets, and cell phones in the world. Apple is a manufacturing company, by the way, and a highly successful one at that. But Apple is the exception and not the rule.

This is not to say that Jobs had to be a jerk, or any CEO for that matter, to be successful.

I think what killed Kodak (really short answer) was top management's lack of passion, lack of hunger, and being out of touch.

Let's see about Apple when they've been around for another 100 years...

[Felinik]

For most recognizable big brand names, it's a huge risk to try to shift your
market emphasis. To this day, I'm not sure who Kodak is. I don't think they know either.

Positioning is a dangerous game, and if you do wrong, it can take a lot of time to repair, if ever possible. This is what I get a feeling that Kodak is finally understanding, from being "kodak, the company giving the world photography", passing through a long period of "Kodak, hmmm what are they doing today? printers? scanners? batteries? pens? flashlights?", they need to focus on something and stay focused and claim that position to become one of the major players in peoples minds in this field. If they do not succeed, it's most probably over once and forever.

[DREW WILEY]

For decades everyone knew exactly what Kodak stood for. Maybe the general public box Brownie
crowd never knew about the extensive industrial scope of products, but cumulatively, there was a
core focus to the whole enterprise, along with a well defined market. This might have needed some
tailoring and gradual shift as newer technologies emerged; but it's not the kind of thing any smart
manager would gamble with while testing newer options. I witnessed several big corporation go down
that wrong path, esp in the 90's when the mantra was to diversify, diversify, diversify in order to have a bigger perceived footprint to potential stock investors. The problem was, some of these
companies diversified into arenas they really didn't understand, and thereby sacrified key finances
that should have gone to upgrading or underpinning their existing base.

[lxdude]

All that stuff from Perez about how great their ink-jet printers would do for profits. Right. Going up against Canon, Epson, HP and Lexmark.
Now Lexmark has announced they are getting out of the ink-jet business and will try to sell the division and its patents.

[Sirius Glass]

If Steve Jobs had taken over Kodak instead of Perez, we might be shooting film with 8"x10" touch screen tablets!

[DREW WILEY]

Exactly! There is still a need for high-end commercial images with good detail and Dick Tracy Secret
Decoder Ring cameras aren't going to fill that need, and current MF digital options are undoubtedly
going to go obsolete, probably before sheet film will. Someone will come up with a real electronic
option for color film itself. In the meantime, I'm going to grow old enjoying my darkroom. There's no
digital option for that! Hands-on for me!