The Eastman Kodak Company, commonly known as Kodak, is an American technology company focused on imaging solutions and services for businesses. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, United States and incorporated in New Jersey. It was founded by George Eastman in 1888.
Kodak provides packaging, functional printing, graphic communications and professional services for businesses around the world. Its main business segments are Digital Printing & Enterprise and Graphics, Entertainment & Commercial Films.
Kodak is best known for photographic film products. During most of the 20th century Kodak held a dominant position in photographic film, and in 1976, had a 90% market share of photographic film sales in the United States. The company's ubiquity was such that its tagline "Kodak moment" entered the common lexicon to describe a personal event that demanded to be recorded for posterity.
Kodak began to struggle financially in the late 1990s as a result of the decline in sales of photographic film and its slowness in transitioning to digital photography, despite having invented the core technology used in current digital cameras. 2007 was the most recent year in which the company made a profit. However, Kodak ended its most recent fiscal quarter reporting a $19M profit. As part of a turnaround strategy, Kodak focused on digital photography and digital printing and attempted to generate revenues through aggressive patent litigation.
In January 2012, Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.In February 2012, Kodak announced that it would cease making digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames and focus on the corporate digital imaging market. In August 2012, Kodak announced the intention to sell its photographic film (excluding motion picture film), commercial scanners and kiosk operations as a measure to emerge from bankruptcy. In January 2013, the Court approved financing for the company to emerge from bankruptcy by mid-2013. Kodak sold many of its patents for approximately $525,000,000 to a group of companies (including Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Samsung, Adobe Systems and HTC) under the name Intellectual Ventures and RPX Corporation.
