“Eastman Kodak Co has agreed to sell its online photo services business to Shutterfly Inc for $23.8 million, kicking off the bankrupt photography pioneer’s relaunch as a much slimmer company although a patent sale seen crucial to its turnaround may still be months away,” Sue Zeidler reports for Reuters.
“The once-iconic company that invented the hand-held camera has said it will quit the camera business and is expected to fetch $1 billion to $2 billion from the sale of about 1,100 digital patents, which is due to get under way by June 30,” Zeidler reports. “A source familiar with the patent sale said the process was moving forward, but added that the completion was not expected anytime soon.”
“Complicating the prospects is a dispute with computer giant Apple Inc over one of the patents,” Zeidler reports. “At a hearing next week on March 8, a bankruptcy judge will hear Apple’s motion to move forward with its patent-infringement suit. Apple has asked the bankruptcy court to lift the automatic stay applied to pending litigation against Kodak when the company filed for Chapter 11 on January 19.”
Zeidler reports, “Shutterfly said it will transfer Kodak Gallery customer accounts and images in the United States and Canada to Shutterfly, and will allow customers to opt out of the transition if they do not want their photos to be transferred. Kodak Gallery — which enables users to store and share their own images and create custom printed photobooks, cards and albums — has more than 75 million users.”
Read more in the full article here.
The wife loves Shutterfly…
Interesting move.
By users I assume they also include people who signed up but have never used it since.
The sale of the patents must not be decoupled from Apples patent infringement claims. Whoever buys them should not be able to use them as weapons against Apple while Kodak shirks responsibility.
Doesn’t Kodak do the printing for Apple’s iPhoto services?
It’s still strange to think that Kodak won’t be involved in cameras any more. . . .
It’s kind of sad really seeing the death of a once great company but poor leadership bad timing and market changes should be looked at by the bean counters … I just pray this never happens to apple