Alliance With Kodak for Patents, Services, and Marketing Production

As BlackBerry transitions into a more multifaceted company, I was thinking it might be beneficial to expand corporate alliances with a symbiotic company like Kodak. Here are some things that might be worth considering.

- While Kodak is not making cameras at this time, an (cell phone) Internet connected camera running BlackBerry 10 , based on a generic Foxconn design, could be popular. Form factor of a modern point and shoot, large screen, nice optical zoom.

- Kodak camera hardware, software, and branding could be used on new BlackBerry devices (much like HTC and Beats Audio).

- Filming and production of advertising for BlackBerry could be handled by Kodak.

- QNX built into Kodak enterprise printing devices.

- BlackBerry Enterprise solutions for handling the integration of professional media, from mobile device straight to the printer in news room (for instance). Imagine a BlackBerry - Kodak solution for handling digital imaging that is secure and designed to minimize "leaks", while also maintaining simple real time communication between the remote employees and their offices.

- Print from BBM and BlackBerry 10, to a home printer or how about you put that picture on a mug and mail it directly to your mom right there from your phone? No reason the software (and physical item manufacturing partner) to do that could not be made.

Why Kodak?

Well, they are another once trusted, well known brand, that is in the process of rediscovering themselves, who are likely open to such alliances or partnerships. Kodak are focused on enterprise services which have some pretty compelling cross overs with QNX and BlackBerry's secure services. Both Kodak and BlackBerry have technology, patents, and services that would strengthen the offerings of both companies (particularly when pitching to potential enterprise customers).

Anyhow, I had a nifty vision of some fantastic end to end services for enterprise and consumers. HP does remote printing for consumers. Nikon does shoot and instantly share cameras. It's only a matter of time before someone stitches this all together...

Food for thought.

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Kodak is an one of the worst examples in history of how to run a company into the ground by making totally wrong management and executive decisions.

They wanted to be a digital printing / imaging company, but should have realized they were in fact a chemical company. How many patents, divisions, assets, etc. they sold of just to stay afloat.

It's worth reading up on it, I hope BlackBerry won't go down on the same way.

Of course, there are synergies of a cooperation between BBRY and Kodak (or what is left of it).

At least worth a thought.

My name is Prem, I'm using BBM ... from my QuZe10 ...whatarhyme...

Lol I like the idea of using a brand say Polaroid. But Kodak completely sucks. They are the worst example of how a company should be run. But a q30 with Polaroid lens technology would definitely be pretty sweet.

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Polaroid (the company that made self-developing film and cameras) hasn't existed in a decade.

The brand name was purchased by a licensing company, which contracts out to Asian manufacturers to build products, but other than the name/logo, there is zero connection to the old Polaroid. Imagine if I bought the rights to the Palm brand from HP, and went to Foxconn and said "make me an Android phone and put my Palm logo on it." People might THINK it had some connection to the old Palm company, but in fact, it would be nothing more than a generic phone with a different label.

It is sad what happened to Polaroid and Kodak. I had read the Kodak wiki page too, so knew their history and current focus before posting this thread.

What is funny is Fuji has a rip off Polaroid camera these days. Just goes to show that there is still a desire for that sort of functionality.

When you look at the business Kodak is building today, there are some pretty clear symbiotic relationships. And unlike other well established and successful companies who are into similar things, Kodak is still figuring out what works for them, so that might make them more open to mutually beneficial arrangements based on collaboration rather than contact terms.

Most people around my age and older know the Kodak brand and remember it fondly or with indifference. They didn't have any giant public relations nightmare, they simply failed to make the most of their portfolio and slowly fizzled out.

I've spoken to many people who liked their old Kodak Easy Share software and home printer, only replacing them because the printer wore out. They made some good products and had some ideas that were ahead of their time,but poorly executed (such as the digital camera itself and "cloud storage" for pictures). I think a sizable amount of folks (consumers) would see the Kodak brand on BlackBerry devices and think, "Eh, Kodak. That's cool".

That said, it's really all about the end to end secure communication, media sharing, and real time collaborative services that could be offered in digital imaging, publishing, and film production to enterprise customers. That's where the need and the money is. There customers could be anyone from Weta Digital to the Wall Street Journal. Just a matter of tailoring the end user tools (cameras, mobiles, secure storage, software interfaces, etc) to the customer's needs, while integrating the required BlackBerry and Kodak "backends" (network, software, hardware) to accomplish the job.

It's a "think big, start small" topic.

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