I am posting this as an article of local interest. We all know that Kodak has been in trouble for years, but it would be sad to see its name brands officially gone since they helped to define Rochester for many years.

The Ten Brands That Will Disappear In 2010

24/7 Wall St. has prepared its list of the ten brands that will disappear in 2010. This list is based on a review of each firm’s financial situation and other operating data, the current and ongoing value of its brand, and whether the company that controls that brand can sell its assets.

This year a number of famous brands have closed or their parents have announced that they will be shut down shortly. This includes decades-old magazines like Gourmet and famous car brands like Pontiac. The recession took whatever economic value these brands had left and destroyed it.

The brands on the 24/7 list for 2010 include companies that have been in trouble for years. Some have been in slow decline and others were irreparably damaged by the credit crisis. Most of these companies will be bought and the rest will simply be closed.

1) Newsweek. The magazine already has slashed its rate base (circulation guaranteed to advertisers) from 3.1 million to 2.5 million.
2) Motorola. The handset and telecom infrastructure company may finally have a future three years after falling from the No.2 spot in global cell phone share to obscurity
3) Palm. The smart phone company had a modest success with the launch of its Pre. The follow-on product, the Pixi, is not doing as well.
4) Borders. Borders Group (NYSE:BGP) lost the online and brick-and-mortar bookstore war years ago to Barnes & Noble (NYSE:BKS) and Amazon.com (NYSE:BGP)
5) Blockbuster. Blockbuster’s (NYSE:BBI) stock traded for $10 less than it did five years
6) Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) are intertwined closer than peanut butter and jelly. These two former government sponsored entities are now in government conservatorship.
7) Ambac Financial Group, Inc. (ABK) is one of the former solid bond insurers that held the market together
8) Eastman Kodak Co. (EK) has been on a downward trajectory since even before the end of the last decade. CEO Antonio Perez has not been able to fix the company since he took over in 2005 and Kodak keeps its heavy project investing and has been in a restructuring state for about as long as memory can go back. How much this has recovered from its lows is probably irrelevant today. And the notion that Perez was re-signed through 2013 is almost baffling. This was one of the greatest American brands of the 20th century. But its entrance to digital printing was very late and too many little dot.com me-too companies were able to jump way in front of the company’s digital efforts. The latest financing deal with KKR was for $700 million, and this seemed more like KKR was getting itself into a position to make a run at the company with a seniority position in the credit structure. Kodak won’t cease to exit. It just may wind up in a private equity portfolio with a much leaner and meaner structure. And that might in fact be a take-under rather than by a traditional buyout. It seems as though Eastman Kodak is in the same or an even worse boat than newspapers, with the key difference being that newspapers still have a business if advertising from auto dealers and housing ever comes back.
9) Sun Microsystems Inc. (JAVA) may be headed into Oracle (ORCL) and it may not.
10) E*Trade Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC) is a great company with a great client base.

Read the full article here: http://247wallst.com/...

The Kodak name may stick around because of brand recognition, but it will probably be owned by another company.

I worked at Kodak as a contractor doing software development for most of the 1990's. The PhotoCD project was a joke. We all knew it would flop because the image format and sizes were absurd and the cost of getting your film on PCD and the hardware to view it was too expensive (and needlessly expensive!).

I also worked on the high-resolution mirror assembly for the Chandra X-ray telescope. We knew it would succeed -- the best and brightest were working on it and they really knew their stuff. (This was the same group that made the eyes for the Mars rovers.)

Kodak's problem is it does really difficult stuff extremely well, but there are very, very few customers for that work. Kodak often completely screws up the easy stuff that should be their bread and butter. This has been going on at least 20 years. Companies don't survive that way.

Get the state out of our wallets and emphasize education from the bottom up and things will turn around. Of course this is looong term, but success hardly happens overnight.

I can see how Kodak could go from household name to a rarely hired company for very difficult technologies. Like working on parts for telescopes, satellites etc..., but not selling the small stuff anymore since I agree, they are horrible at handling the market like that. I mean the disc? What were they thinking? Then has anyone ever used the Kodak software (easy share) that comes with a Kodak digital camera? Can you say "Switching to Cannon"???