New post (215) : Stay ahead in the patents race.
I find myself struggling to understand what all of this means as a learning for similarly placed pioneers on the verge of going bust.
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Eastman Kodak Co, which invented the hand-held camera and helped bring the world the first pictures from the moon, has filed for bankruptcy protection, capping a prolonged plunge for one of America's best-known companies.
The more than 130-year-old photographic film pioneer, which had tried to restructure to become a seller of consumer products like cameras, said it had also obtained a $950 million, 18-month credit facility from Citigroup to keep it going.
The loan and bankruptcy protection from U.S. trade creditors may give Kodak the time it needs to find buyers for some of its 1,100 digital patents, the key to its remaining value, and to reshape its business while continuing to pay its 17,000 workers.
"The board of directors and the entire senior management team unanimously believe that this is a necessary step and the right thing to do for the future of Kodak,"
"Now we must complete the transformation by further addressing our cost structure and effectively monetizing non-core intellectual-property assets. We look forward to working with our stakeholders to emerge a lean, world-class, digital imaging and materials science company," he added.
At end September, the group had total assets of $5.1 billion and liabilities of $6.75 billion.
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It is in the main – “Patents and people” or/ people generating patents – that seem to be their savior of last resort. {...& not the banks).
The strategic question to ask in not "who" is the enemy. Rather "what" is the enemy.
That realization - to me - is "a Kodak moment"-----------------.
Reference : Theodore Levitt - who is credited with being the first to make us aware of "MARKETING MYOPIA", was an influential scholar and former editor of Harvard Business Review whose writings radically altered the way marketing is practiced and studied. He wrote eight books on marketing, including Innovation in Marketing and The Marketing Imagination.
Charlie Brown
