Just when you thought things would settle down, Kodak and Ricoh join forces so Ricoh will sell Kodak in Europe, and it may just be a matter of time before there's and OEM agreement here in the US.
Andrew Tribute on February 12th, 2009
Last week we had the fuss about the Wall Street Journal and their misunderstanding of the messages they were given in a briefing by Kodak Chairman and CEO Antonio Perez. In that the WSJ incorrectly reported that Kodak planned to divest itself of its Nexpress and Digimaster digital printing operations, whereas Perez actually stated that Kodak planned to develop the operations of this division through partnerships and alliances.
What a difference a week makes. Today in Sweden Kodak and Ricoh announced an alliance that allows Ricoh to sell the Kodak Nexpress and Digimaster product ranges throughout most of the European markets. Ricoh has a strong distribution channel in these markets and currently it sells a wide range of Ricoh light monochrome and color production presses under its various brands. These channels include those Danka/Infotec, Gestetner and Infoprint Solutions, the joint venture with IBM. The Kodak products will be sold alongside the Ricoh Aficio range as well as the recently introduced Ricoh Pro C900 color press.
At this time neither Kodak nor Ricoh is saying any more but I get the feeling that there is a lot more to this agreement that will come out over time. At the moment this agreement just covers Europe, but no doubt this is just a start. I also have to ask where does this put Kodak’s agreement with Canon. I hear that the Nexpress M700, that uses Canon 7000 technology, is sitting somewhat exposed in the market at a high price compared with equivalent products, and that it is being well undercut by Canon’s pushing of its 6000 press. Can we expect that Kodak’s weaknesses against companies like Xerox, where they have no comparable products to the Docucolor 242/252/260 and 700 Digital Press, could be helped by moving the Ricoh Aficio range through Kodak’s channels?
I think it is a shame that this information could not have been made available when Antonio Perez addressed the financial community. Perhaps he would have got a more positive reaction and perhaps also he would have had an increase in the Kodak share price. I am sure that this is not Kodak’s only announcement to be made in the next few months so I think we shall have to watch the company closely for some time yet.
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