A century of Kodak through the difficult transformation of patent income

Introduction: Foreign media today, although very early participation in digital imaging technology research and development, but because of concern about film business affected, Kodak missed the digital camera industry development opportunities.　　Although it has undergone nearly 30 years of restructuring, and in recent years has begun to focus on the development of printers and cartridge business, but the company is still struggling.　　The following is a summary of the article: after 30 years of depressed stock prices, Kodak has undergone a series of restructuring, but still struggling. The 131-Year-old company has been robbed of many of its businesses in the film market, but when digital cameras rise, it fails to hold the time.　　Now, Kodak is trying to reset itself into a printer and ink cartridge manufacturer, and speed up the burning of money. The company reported a 5th consecutive quarterly loss, according to a report released June 26 by Kodak. The company's bonds were rated junk, and the two-year bond price fell below $0.80 trillion, suggesting that the market considered its solvency risk. Kodak's already weak share price was battered again this week, plunging 10% in Wednesday to 1.77 dollars.　　Since the 1950, Kodak's share price has never fallen below 2 U.S. dollars. Kodak earns revenue by suing companies that violate their patents. But people familiar with the matter said that the reduction in the Patent settlement agreement this year led to Kodak's initiative to authorize some patents last month. Analysts believe Kodak's patent portfolio is worth more than the company's current market capitalisation of less than 500 million dollars.　　It also highlights the huge decline in Kodak's share price. A private-equity firm is interested in acquiring a large stake in Kodak, a banker called Kodak last month, people familiar with the matter said. Since then, Kodak CEO Perez (Antonio Perez) convened a meeting of the Board at the weekend and passed a decision to block a hostile takeover.　　Kodak August 1 announced a poison pill program: If outside investors buy large stakes, shareholders can buy shares at a discount. Some former executives believe that Kodak should split the company and sell the spin-off business separately. But Perez rejected the offer, and said it would complicate the company's pension liabilities. But the board's attitude is less firm. Rick Braddock, chief independent director of Kodak, said the Rick Braddock was meaningless because Kodak was doing its best to deploy the recovery strategy. But he added: "I do not rule out any possibility." "Cash pressure Perez said he still has confidence in the company's transition plan."　　He said that although the company's current cash is only 957 million U.S. dollars, but thanks to intellectual property revenue, asset disposal and sales promotion in the second half, the company to the end of the cash balance will reach at least 1.6 billion U.S. dollars. In his view, the company's cash spending this year has risen sharply, reflecting the timing of the pension plan and the state of the Intellectual Property Settlement agreement, which has nothing to do with the fundamentals of the business. He also said that Kodak's printer market share is rapidly expanding, once the establishment of a sufficient user base, and began to generate revenue through the ink cartridge, the business will havePrepare a strong profitability. In addition, Kodak sued Apple and RIM's phone earlier this year for infringing its picture preview patent. The case was first rejected by a judge, but as the judge retired before the completion of the second trial, the case was referred to another judge. Perez said that the lawsuit can bring Kodak 1 billion dollars in compensation revenue.　　But Apple and Rim declined to comment. Wall Street remains concerned about Kodak's performance. "Whether it's cash flow, income growth or overall growth, this quarter is disappointing," said Christ Whitemore, analyst at Deutsche Bank, Chris Whitemoor. "Print Business Perez is the 5th CEO of Kodak in the last 30 years. In order to prevent the decline in performance, Kodak has tried a variety of business, including pharmaceuticals, bathroom cleaners, drug testing equipment, but none worked. Perez, who had been in HP for many years, chose a printer. He will be in this field with HP, Canon and Seiko Epson and other established enterprises competition.　　According to IDC, the US market research firm, the three companies control about three-fourths of the global printer market. Kodak started selling consumer printers in 2007. Perez's strategy is to change the industry's usual approach, offering high-priced printers and low-cost cartridges.　　He hopes to use nanotechnology in film fabrication to produce a ink that does not clog up the printer's nozzle, thus reducing the cost by replacing the nozzle every time the ink is filled. According to IDC data, Kodak 2010 in the global printer market share has increased from 1% in 2008 to 3%. Kodak's strategy is to subsidize the printer until the user is enough to produce a large number of cartridge sales.　　However, because of the lower cost of cartridge replacement, Kodak was able to sell the printer at a higher price than the competitor. Insiders revealed that some errors slowed the pace of Kodak's transformation. Kodak printer early because of some design defects resulting in a small return cost.　　By the time the problem is resolved, the economic crisis is not yet over. Hard transition The Kodak board still supports Perez and its strategy. In 2009, the company's board persuaded Perez to abandon his retirement plan and renew it with him until the end of 2013. "Kodak's strategic transformation is one of the toughest business transitions I've ever seen," Braddock said. "Over the years, Kodak has been relying on the lucrative film business profits."　　With cheap films and cameras, Kodak has turned photography from a sophisticated technology into a form of entertainment that everyone can enjoy. But in the 1980 years, faced with the challenges of foreign film companies and the rise of digital technology, Kodak has gradually into a dilemma. The company claimed to have invented the world's first digital camera in 1975 and spent hundreds of millions of of billions of dollars developing digital technology.　　But concerns about the impact of film sales have led the company to fail to develop its digital business vigorously. The total number of Kodak employees has also fallen sharply in recent years. In 2010, the company's Rochester headquarters staff reached 16300, but only 71 in 201000 people.　　During this period, the total number of its global employees decreased from 54800 to 18,800. Former Kodak employees believe that the company's failure to a large extent stems from the isolation of corporate culture.　　A retired director said an outside consultant had criticized Kodak's corporate culture in the early 1990 's, but the company's management ignored it. After 25 years in HP, Perez joined Kodak in 2003 as President and COO. He was in charge of inkjet printers at HP and tried to buy Kodak.　　After job-hopping, he will be in the printer industry experience to Kodak. After becoming a Kodak CEO in 2005, the board set three goals for Perez: Cutting film operations, creating new digital companies and managing pensions and medical costs for retirees. Each task costs a lot of money, and the reorganization of the film business alone costs 3.4 billion of dollars in 4 years.　　But the company's operating activities are not cash-flow enough to support such high spending. Kodak began to accumulate from the early development of film and coating technology-related patents. The company has a total of more than 11,000 patents, and many new patents are concentrated in digital fields such as picture previews. To support the costly digital strategy, Perez began to authorize Kodak's digital imaging patents and launch patent lawsuits.　　The strategy brought 1.9 billion dollars of revenue to the company in 2008-2010. A Kodak board member said the decrease in patent litigation revenue led the company to consider selling more patents. The Board approved the plan at a meeting in mid-July.　　Kodak also plans to sell or lease an area of 2.5 million square feet (about 230,000 square meters) of a manufacturing center in Rochester. Break-even Perez said he had been wandering around the company at the beginning of his tenure and had communicated with many internal "opponents" to understand the company's status. In the process, he learned that the company is developing an inkjet project.　　And since Kodak has the film industry background, it is fully capable of producing a kind of ink that will not clog the print nozzle. Perez said he initially presented several digital business proposals to the board, including scanners, High-tech display panels and new sensor technologies. "I submitted 11 projects. I told the board that at least 30% of the projects were useless, but I don't know what it was.　　"he said. The Board approved all 11 projects, but Perez and management later took the initiative to cancel two of them. The company's fortunes are now largely dependent on the print business.　　Kodak initially predicted that its consumer printer business would be balanced in 2010, but later postponed that date to 2011 years. Business status A former senior executive who left office recently said that Kodak overestimated its ability to penetrate the printer market, and many inside also doubted whether to make ends meet in 2011.　　Fierce competition has been the price of printers to form a crackdown, Kodak is facing another obstacle. The second quarter of this year, Kodak eliminationRevenue for inkjet printers and cartridges increased by 48%. "We're robbing everyone of their share. "Braddock said.　　Perez said that if the company no longer provides subsidies to customers who buy printers, it will immediately make a profit, but it would have a negative impact on previous efforts and would not be conducive to attracting enough ink cartridge users. Kodak commercial printer Business development is more lag. The company plans to sell a device that is about the size of a room and can print thousands of pages of different content per minute. But at present there are only dozens of customers, and they need to make this kind of complex machine by hand.　　In the second quarter of this year, the loss of Kodak's business group expanded from $17 million trillion to $45 million a year earlier. Perez said he plans to continue to develop the printer business.　　To keep his staff morale, he shared his experience as a runner: in the 10,000-meter race, the last 2000 meters were always the hardest. "You may lose the game at this time, so keep running," he said. "he said. (Ding Macro)