| "Eastman Kodak is an industrial giant of the 20th century that has been cut down to size in the 21st by its failure to keep up with developments in technology and the demands of the marketplace." "The business in which Kodak made its name, film processing and conventional photography, is in decline. The company has branched out into medical imaging, digital cameras and online photo sharing, with performance that has ranged from fairly good to woeful." "The result is a stock that trades for about the same price as it did in 1965. A restructuring program, including a fresh round of job cuts last week, has provided little incentive to buy, although some analysts give the company credit for at least recognizing how much trouble it's in." ""They lost their magic touch," said Irina Logovinsky, an analyst at Morningstar. "There are way too many people producing similar technology better."" "Kodak fell into a trap that has snared many successful companies, including big names like Xerox and IBM a generation ago and AOL more recently. They had the brilliance to change an industry, but their hubris led them to believe that the evolution would stop with them." "Kodak's shareholders may take heart from the fact that the others managed to extricate themselves ? IBM very gracefully ? but only after long, deep declines in their share prices. "When you become No. 1 and you have no competition, you earn very fat profits and you become complacent," Logovinsky said. "You think it's going to go on forever, then competitors invent digital cameras and no one's using film anymore."" "Canon has surpassed Kodak in sales of digital cameras, and Internet-based photo-sharing services like Shutterfly and Snapfish have proven tough competition for Kodak's EasyShare Gallery." "In medical imaging, the company was no match for General Electric and the Dutch conglomerate Philips. Kodak announced last month that it would sell that business to a Canadian company as part of the reorganization that Antonio Perez has overseen since taking over as Kodak's chief executive in mid-2005." "Some investment advisers wonder what Perez has to show for his efforts, apart from nearly 30,000 job cuts, continual charges against earnings and mounting debt. The burden on its balance sheet could limit the effectiveness of Kodak's extreme makeover by reducing the amount available for research and development." "Kodak's newest venture, a range of inkjet printers introduced this month, was greeted with little enthusiasm. Its
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