Yahoo: Kodak's announced a new strategy to cut costs. In image sensors, Kodak says it will seek alliances with other companies.
Reuters also reports that Kodak plans to trim its own CMOS image sensor investment. The company hopes that some unnamed partner would help it to fund the further development.
Kodak said it will pursue "alliances or other business model changes to reduce risk and enhance revenue and margins." "We are not thinking of divesting any of those businesses [image sensor and some others]," Antonio Perez added. "We have to find a way to continue to be in all those businesses without all the risk."
Update: The official Kodak press release does NOT include image sensors into the "Core Investments" group. Rather, they are included in the group of "Businesses Being Transformed". The PR says:
"Image Sensor Solutions ... require additional investment in order to achieve their full potential. Kodak will reposition these businesses by pursuing alliances or other business model changes to reduce risk and enhance revenue and margins."
Geez. It seems like only last quarter Kodak was talking about massive penetration within one year. Now, they want to reduce their risk? Hmmmm ... I wonder if they lost a major design win ...
ReplyDeleteAlso, who would want to partner with Kodak? Seems like there is plenty of IP, but what else do they really bring to the party besides a bloated cost structure?
> Seems like there is plenty of IP, but what else do they really bring to the party besides a bloated cost structure?
ReplyDeleteKodak has advanced with its nice idea with WRGB color filter. Its engineers overcame a good part of problems associated with that change. There is still more work ahead, but Kodak's experience is quite valuable. Also, I would not write off the value of its business alliance with Motorola.
Looking more broadly, I do not think that any consumer image sensor vendor is making money now. So, it's not a shame for Kodak to say what it said. We better should think how whole the industry can get out of this dangerous situation.
Many CIS companies are having a tough time now, aliance/partner talks are everywhere. The companies to come out of this in the best shape may very well be the ones that form the best aliances/partnerships
ReplyDelete