HP Kodak

This is an interesting analysis of the rumored HP/Kodak acquisition/merger. It pretty much dismisses it for a variety of reasons-incluidng the fact that Kodak's legacy film business is pretty much akin to Compaq's PC business- and of course, we all know how well that turned out for HP. (On a side note, has there ever been an investigation into that merger? In many ways it reminds me of the current disaster situation in New Orleans. Every seemed to see what was coming - but didn't do anything about it. In fact, in HP's situation, Walter Hewlett I believe seemed to call the whole thing on the nose - but was ignored. Why? If you have an explantion please post!)

Anyhow, the interesting thing about the HP/Kodak story is the discussion - although it is not named as such, of HP's Graphics Communications business, of which is Document Imaging business is now a part. It really just throws some more kudos on that part of the company. If you remember, Kodak Document Imaging really helped lead Kodak's charge - albeit when something as large as Kodak moves, it's not always at light brigade speed - into the digital age.

What would be kind of neat would be taking Kodak's Graphics Communications business and pairing it with HP's imaging stuff. In fact, here's a fairly intriguing archiving and imaigng announcement out of HP today. HP/Kodak would truly make a digital imaging powerhouse - of course, dealing with the dead weight between the two companies may make the merger impossible.

Cheers.

Traveling to Harvey's Capture Conference in Long Island this week. Will try and post from there.

RG