Discussion

By Michael J on Nov 07, 2009

Eric,
I'm looking forward to your story next week. My two cents is that prinergy and associated products are the real value at Kodak just waiting to be unlocked. It gives them a commanding position in the offset workflow.

Of course it's possible that the value will be overlooked by their focus on the "social media" and the consumer market. But my bet is that the new presence of KKR in the game will get it front and center.

Maybe the best thing going forward would be to put it in a separate business unit or even spin it off. But with the new vitality of a newspaper market that has been forced to eliminate alot of overhead associated with a previous monopoly position, the deep ties into the workflow should be a great place to grow from.

By Bob Smith on Nov 09, 2009

Sounds like damage limitation from Kodak. How can you move a bunch of code to Israel from Vancouver when they couldn't even move Preps and Pandora from Seattle to Vancouver! They have lost a lot of good people in recent months which we assume is their winding down phase. Saying they are moving it to Israel is another political way of saying 'we have shelved Prinergy'

By Jeff Lazerus on Nov 09, 2009

Prepress Pilgrim already has a pretty detailed story, not sure what kind of follow up this blog could possibly provide, especially considering consistent advertising BY KODAK on this blog and other WTT properties.

By Eric Vessels on Nov 09, 2009

Hi Jeff. Thanks for stopping in and commenting. We noted (and linked) to the Prepress Pilgrim story. The follow up will most likely not be on the blog, but a feature article on WhatTheyThink. Cary Sherburne is going to be talking to Kodak and putting something together.

It's your call on whether you deem her work biased in light of Kodak's support of WhatTheyThink and Print CEO.

By DJ on Nov 09, 2009

I've done a follow-up to the original blog post (see link above). It's a analysis of the development issues facing the Israeli transition team. Unfortunately, development logistics (while really important) are a real snoozer to blog about so I don't expect too much traffic to it. And it's pretty grim reading.

As far as whattheythink and printceo covering the story, that's great. The more coverage the better. I'll even link to the stories when they come out.

By Gordon Pritchard on Nov 10, 2009

RE: "Unfortunately, development logistics (while really important) are a real snoozer to blog about so I don’t expect too much traffic to it. And it’s pretty grim reading."

Baloney! - you've already gotten 4 comments. :-)

I agree about it being good that printceo will be covering the story. Hopefully it won't end up just being a reiteration of Kodak's already well crafted response though.

No pressure Cary.

By Michael J on Nov 10, 2009

Just to add a little no pressure on Cary...

Is it possible that Kodak is getting ready to spin off the print piece, reduce their balance sheet and focus on the consumer business and their assets at Kodak Gallery with a gezillion high res images.

Earlier this week I found this one:

Kodak has developed a clever app that allows image upload to Kodak’s EasyShare wireless Digital Frames, the W1020 and W820, or print to the Kodak ESP 5250 Wi-Fi Printer.

By Bob Raus on Nov 10, 2009

It's good to see all these comments and commitment to workflow. It appears that the industry has finally started to (really) embrace the power and value of workflow vs. just print engine speeds, feeds and dpi. New market education and definition areas like RISO's recent announcement of a Mid-Volume Transaction Output (MVTO) portal (http://us.riso.com/mvto) help to place focus where it belongs - on how to help customer's succeed via business-oriented technology solutions.

Prinergy is a strong workflow portfolio and unique in its ability to ties digital and traditional plate making processes together. Competitive products exist for each area of Prinergy, but no one has the complete portfolio Kodak has which is something I hope to see them invest in and leverage more.

By Adam Dewitz on Nov 10, 2009

DJ, I just read your http://www.prepresspilgrim.com/index.php/archive/ten-reasons-why-prinergy-is-still-dead/" rel="nofollow">follow-up post “Ten Reasons Why Prinergy is Still Dead” and it's spreading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt" rel="nofollow">FUD.

Your post overlooks the engineering discipline in modern software development. Great software products are the result of great software engineering: clean, well architected, documented code.

Are we to believe Prinergy was developed haphazardly? Your post makes it sound like all the people who have contributed to Prinergy's development over the years are amaturers who don't understand software engineering.

There will certainly be some issues during this transition and there are legitimate concerns with the move Kodak is making with Prinergy.

By Dewald on Nov 10, 2009

Prinergy is the leading workflow tool in offset and more, there is no way that this product could get shelved. If I am not mistaken Creo, which is 50% Prinergy or more anyway came from Israel and/or most of it was based there, so I don't see any problems with this. For us in Africa it only means quicker support because there is no time delay ;-)
Who knows, maybe we see just a name change but the core will stay Prinergy?! I think it is more tough times for all.....not the move but business wise?

By Greg S. on Nov 10, 2009

You are correct that Prinergy was from Creo, but the Israel connection to Creo was from the purchase of Scitex. This had little to do with Prinergy. The fact that the Scitex product (Brisque) has long been retired, makes you wonder what kind of engineering effort is still available for workflow software out of that facility.

I would believe the bigger issue is how saturated the market is for products like this. Hasn't everyone that needs one of these systems already purchased one? Furthermore, has their business improved or are they hunkered down just trying to get by with what they have?

The shrinking industry for this product is more to blame than Kodak restructuring an effort with declining demand.

By DJ Dunkerley on Nov 10, 2009

Hi Adam:

Windows Vista. Quark 5. Products with an existing code base written by extremely competent software teams and taken over by different teams who I have no doubt were staffed by extremely competent software developers.
In my opinon piece, I have even stated that I think Israeli developers (in my experience), as a general rule, are very competent.

But. The transition time. Three months. Is too short.

C'est fini. To be honest, I keep on repeating that because in six months time, I plan on posting "Naaaah, naaaahh, told you guys!"

If in six months time, everything is groovy, feel free to mock me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V7zbWNznbs

By Bryan Yeager on Nov 11, 2009

Prinergy is a mature product. Computer-to-Plate is a mature market. Production volumes are migrating to digital. Kodak is banking on a digital future, especially with inkjet. Kodak's core competencies in digital are with its PODS group in Israel. As Kodak moves to add more digital workflow functionality to Prinergy, it makes sense to take advantage of a team that is focused on digital.

Any frustrations spawned from this transition will surely be expressed at GUA 2010.