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 0.23 Euros per page, against 0.6 Euros average industry cost. For colour prints, Kodak cost 0.69 Euros versus 1.3 Euros. Finally, for a 10x15cm photo, a Kodak print cost 0.96 Euros, with the industry average much higher at 3.06 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.

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