Digital printing by xerography with the Nexpress and Digimaster products and by inkjet with the Versamark products has at this stage not made a real contribution to profits. During the time of this four year restructuring plan and the push to digital luckily for Kodak revenues from Kodak's Graphic Communications Group have held up mainly due to the success of its printing plate business and associated digital workflow and CtP operations. Perez's strategy is a major switch to digital products with a push towards new inkjet technologies. It has cut almost 28,000 jobs in its worldwide workforce. This has seen a major move out of film operations with a substantial close down programme of film factories worldwide. Kodak has been through a massive restructuring over the past four years under the guidance of its CEO, Antonio Perez.
This is Kodak (or Eastman Kodak to be correct). The major subject I want to cover is one of the major players in the market. Some companies such as HP appear to be prospering, and Xerox is not doing badly but has battened down the hatches with cost reductions to prepare for a bad 2009. In the digital printing area things are somewhat better and we have not seen the major drops in turnover, profits or stock prices that have been seen in the offset area. It appears the financial community is writing off the printing industry and its suppliers and is losing faith in the industry for the future. In the prepress area Agfa has seen its stock price fall drastically as investors appear to lose faith in the company. Heidelberg is not alone in seeing major falls in stock prices and almost all offset press suppliers have seen major falls in this area. We have seen Heidelberg having promised orders failing to materialize after drupa have instigated major cost saving measures and have also seen their stock price drop through the floor. The majority of suppliers today are having a hard time and few are meeting the market projections they made around the drupa timescale. As my next Tribute's Tuesday column is not until mid January I am putting this subject on the blog as I feel there are points to be made now.
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