The Wall Street Journal published an interesting article today about Xerox and Kodak entitled When Neighbors Become Rivals. The author, William Bulkeley, says the two have been friendly neighbors until recently as "digital convergence and financial travails are increasingly turning the two imaging companies into rivals." Highlights: - It "will be a battle of the titans" in Rochester, says Frank Romano. The population of the upstate New York city, currently 211,000, has been shrinking because of layoffs at Kodak and Xerox. - Keeping secrets from each other is difficult because "people go back and forth routinely," Mr. Romano says. "It's hard to get talented people to move to Rochester." - Matt Troy of Citigroup, "There are 32,000 commercial printers, and they're going bankrupt at a rate of over 1,000 a year, with profit margins of 1% to 2%. It's a dismal business." - In 2005, Xerox's iGen printers held 37% of the high-end market, compared with 21% for Kodak's NexPress, and 33% for HP Indigo press according to InfoTrends. - Jeffrey Hayzlett, chief marketing officer for Kodak Graphic Communications, says that most print shops already buy Kodak supplies for their offset presses, giving Kodak an entree to sell its high-end presses. "We're the only ones playing in both the conventional and the digital side," he says. "We've been in this print business for over 100 years. We've seen a lot of competitors come and go." - Frank Romano says he expects Kodak will soon start to resell some cheaper digital presses made by Canon. SEE THE FULL ARTICLE (Subscription to the Wall Street Journal Required)