Re: [Leica] Kodak Focus now management hubris

[Seth Rosner <sethrosner@direcway.com>]

We are really on to a very interesting discussion; and it is even on-topic
as it involves the capture technologies we use and are vitally interested
in.

Reading Jim's post, I recalled having lunch with my dad and a friend of his,
a much older man, when I got out of college in the 1950's. Dad's friend was
talking about investing and how important it was (is) to understand how the
world can change. He told of a company around the turn of the 19th-20th
Century that was the paradigm of "widows' and orphans' " stock, good and
secure dividend, and a business that would ALWAYS be needed in a growing
commercial world that required transportation facilities. The shares were of
the Erie Canal Company. Everyone knew their barges were the sine qua non of
commerce in the Northeast US.

With Kodak, it may well have been arrogance and hubris. An added factor has
been the need perceived by corporate management to continue to produce
quarter-on-quarter increases in earnings-per-share, to please and placate
the investment "professionals" who buy and sell shares in the hundreds of
thousands and millions and therefore determine the very value of the
company.

It is rare if not close to unique - and lucky - when a company management -
like Microsoft's - is astute enough to produce growing earnings while
simultaneously correctly identifying, investing and moving into explosive
new technologies.

Seth                LaK 9

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