Kodak Focuses on the Consumer

At a press event held this week in Barcelona, Spain, Kodak outlined its future plans, admitting that it had no current intentions to enter the digital SLR market. Instead the company will focus its efforts on the general consumer and attempt to strengthen its position as the 3rd biggest manufacturer worldwide for digital still cameras. The new CMOS sensor that was launched back in July on the entry-level C513 camera was heralded as a “huge breakthrough” for Kodak by John O’Grady, the MD of Europe, strongly hinting that future models will employ the same technology.

Kodak also backed-up its claims of 50% cheaper inkjet printing with a new independent report from QualityLogic that verifies the cost savings. The report concluded that prints made on Kodak’s 5500 and 5300 all-in-one printers were up to 3 times less expensive than the industry average, across three different categories of printing. For black prints, Kodak’s prints costs 0.023 Euros per page, against 0.060 Euros average industry cost. For colour prints, Kodak cost 0.069 Euros versus 0.130 Euros. Finally, for a 10x15cm photo, a Kodak print cost 0.096 Euros, with the industry average much higher at 0.306 Euros.

A new feature for Kodak digital picture frames, dubbed “Picture Mail”, was pre-announced. Kodak Picture Mail will allow users to send their pictures to friends who also own a digital picture frame, which automatically notifies you that new photos are available to display. The user is then given the choice of whether or not to accept and display them. This new feature is part of a much larger drive by Kodak to focus on end-to-end, consumer-driven solutions, rather then “technology for technology’s sake”, with the company believing that “we need more duende (spirit) in digital photography”. Kodak cited both PictureBooks and Picture Movie DVDs as great success stories.

Phil Scott, Head of Worldwide Marketing for Digital Capture and Devices, stated that “video will become part of the normal camera experience”, a claim that Kodak are actively pursuing with high definition video modes available in their latest range of cameras. Instead of expanding the number of different scene modes and potentially confusing the user, “cameras thinking for you” is a prime aim for the future, so we can expect Kodak to join the likes of Panasonic and make their auto modes more intelligent. Interestingly Scott also stated that “70% of DSLR photos are shot in Auto mode”, although no source other than Kodak’s own research was provided as evidence of this.

“See Things Differently” was the theme of this pan-European event, as Kodak attempts to finally shift away from film (even though 22% of its 2006 sales came from film) and embrace what the company referred to as the Digital 2.0 future.

Published: Friday, October 12, 2007

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