"Overall, we're expecting a year of good progress in a historic transition," said Chief Executive Antonio Perez, a former Hewlett-Packard stalwart who took the helm in June. Others, however, predict that the multiyear transformation, which includes the elimination of 25,000 jobs, almost inevitably will lead to even bigger changes in the years ahead. "They'll probably make it to digital but it may not be the Kodak we know," said Christopher Hayes, chief investment officer of Hayes-Fischer Capital Management of Rochester. "As you go from a monopoly to a commodity type of business, you could see Kodak split up in different pieces," he said. "I think people feel that way more, now that you have non-Kodak people running the company. There's not as much allegiance."

And while Kodak can take some solace in the fact that is not alone in its misery

Kodak and Japanese archrival Fuji Photo Film Co. aren't the only film-and-paper manufacturers reeling from ever fiercer competition as the digital revolution sweeps through. Germany's AgfaPhoto, which has failed to find a buyer, warned Wednesday of the possibility of going out of business by year-end.

not everyone is pessimistic about Kodak's future. In fact, Ulysses Yannas, a broker with Buckman, Buckman & Reid in New York, sees upside potential:

"I'm a fan, an optimist," Yannas acknowledged. "But this is, incidentally, a company I used to dislike for years. It was a hidebound company, and I only started liking the changes in management around 1997. "They don't have a history as a digital company but they have the three requirements to support it: technology, management and - more important probably than anything - distribution. Their deliverance cannot happen in one quarter, in one year, but they have the best name in imaging and their quality continues to be proven out."

The problem I see with the prognosis is that it might be colored by wishthink: Ulyssess is, after all, a broker, someone paid to be optimistic and to see upside potential. My prediction is that the company will survive, will lumber on, for another decade or so, gradually being sold off in pieces- much the same as Polaroid. When its remains reach the corporate boneyard, the gravestone should include not only the photograph that appears at the top of this post, but also the words that appear at the top of the picture, the words emblazoned high on the front face of the building- You Press the Button and We Do the Rest. And these words should be pondered carefully for they contain an answer to the question raised in the first paragraph; they indicate how it came to pass that the very same words that once enshrined the idea of "Kodak Moments" later became the words that will one day entomb the firm. See also Kodak vs the Internet — Who Owns You? Kodak vs. the Internet kodak digital photography