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To: Ausdauer who wrote (24527)	1/13/2004 10:11:45 AM
From: Mike Buckley	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 60323

Aus, Can you see the headline, "Kodak no longer making 35mm film" in a few years? Name the year (pick one much further out if you prefer) and we'll make a friendly bet about it. --Mike Buckley

To: Ausdauer who wrote (24527)	1/14/2004 10:17:25 AM
From: Art Bechhoefer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 60323

Aus, the Rochester NY paper had an article about Kodak INCREASING its film and camera manufacturing in China on the premise that there is growing demand for conventional camera and film. This may seem hard to believe, but if you know the people at Kodak, you can see why they will grasp at anything that looks like conventional film and camera business--declining or not! There is still an active film market for professionals. Most photography for magazines such as Gourmet is done with conventional film in order to get the maximum detail and color for photos that are reproduced in the magazine. Kodak is turning into a company that services professionals in color illustrations, x-rays, cinema, etc., but is losing its main consumer business to digital, where it once had a lead but is now down to third or fourth place. Someone drew an analogy between Kodak and Polaroid. In a way, Kodak is becoming like Polaroid, which went downhill beginning with 1-hr. processing, and then went bankrupt after digital became the better alternative. Polaroid has never found a way to give up its chemically based instant photography in favor of digital. Kodak has still refused to acknowledge that its core business will be replaced by digital within a few years. I'm convinced that the real blow to Kodak comes from camera phones, which are rapidly becoming good enough to equal the quality of throw away cameras. The value added cost of a camera phone over a conventional wireless handset is now low enough to attract the casual consumer who would use a throw away camera only on special occasions. I wonder what Carl Icahn has in mind for Kodak, now that he owns about 7 percent of the shares. Art