Kodak discontinued its DCS Pro SLR/n and DCS Pro SLR/c camera bodies in 2005.
‘We had long debates about what to do… but the driving force was, when you broke down the economics, you really had you have your own lens manufacturing for it to be a great business to be in,’ said Eastman Kodak general manager for Film Capture, Paper and Output Systems, Dennis Olbrich.
Olbrich – a former operations manager for Digital Cameras & Devices – said it was not a viable business model, given the price Kodak would have had to pay to buy third-party lenses.
‘Our decision was that it was not a profitable venture to go into, given that we didn’t have SLR-type lens capability in-house,’ he added in a recent interview with Amateur Photographer.
Earlier this month, Kodak announced plans for an interchangeable-lens, compact system camera, to be made by US firm JK Imaging under a brand licensing agreement.
On Wednesday, Kodak won court approval for it to borrow $844 million dollars – funds it plans to use to help it emerge from bankruptcy protection by ‘mid-2013′. Kodak agreed the deal with lenders in November 2012.
Kodak chairman and CEO Antonio M Perez said: ‘The court’s approval of this financing commitment puts Kodak in a strong position to emerge from Chapter 11.
‘This agreement, in conjunction with the recently approved sale and licensing of our digital imaging patent portfolio, lays the foundation for our Plan of Reorganization and a successful emergence from Chapter 11 as a profitable and sustainable company.’
