Kodak

The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ˈkoʊdæk) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorporated in New Jersey. It is best known for photographic film products, which it brought to a mass market for the first time. Kodak began as a partnership between George Eastman and Henry A. Strong to develop a film roll camera. After the release of the Kodak camera, Eastman Kodak was incorporated on May 23, 1892. Under Eastman's direction, the company became one of the world's largest film and camera manufacturers, and also developed a model of welfare capitalism and a close relationship with the city of Rochester. During most of the 20th century, Kodak held a dominant position in photographic film, and produced a number of technological innovations through heavy investment in research and development at Kodak Research Laboratories. Kodak produced some of the most popular camera models of the 20th century, including the Brownie and Instamatic. The company's ubiquity was such that its "Kodak moment" tagline entered the common lexicon to describe a personal event that deserved to be recorded for posterity. Kodak began to struggle financially in the late 1990s as a result of increasing competition from Fujifilm. The company also struggled with the transition from film to digital photography, although Kodak had developed the first self-contained digital camera. Attempts to diversify its chemical operations failed, and as a turnaround strategy in the 2000s, Kodak instead made an aggressive turn to digital photography and digital printing. These strategies failed to improve the company's finances, and in January 2012, Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. In September 2013, the company emerged from bankruptcy, having shed its large legacy liabilities, restructured, and exited several businesses.