Photo finish for Eastman Kodak

The company that brought photography to the masses more than a hundreds years ago has announced it will be getting out the business all together.

The iconic photography brand, Kodak, who invented the hand-held camera, will stop making digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames during the furst half of 2012 in a bid to reduce its costs.

Eastman Kodak said it will phase out these product lines and look for companies to license its brand for those products.

Once the digital camera business is phased out, it will concentrate on printing. Since 2005 the company has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into new lines of inkjet printers.

Japanese competition in the 80s put pressure on the company and then when the digital revolution came they company found it hard to keep pace.

Snap Shot of Kodak

- Eastman Kodak was founded by George Eastman in 1880

- the Kodak brand was known world-wide in particular for its instamatic camerals and yellow and red film boxes.

- The market value of the company has fallen to £100m from more than £20bn 15 years ago.

- A decade ago, the firm employed 70,000 people but the payroll has shrunk to below 19,000.

10 February 2012