'No Excuse Not To Succeed'

摘要

Dressed in a cream-colored suit amid a sea of dark jackets, Antonio M, Perez looked more like an MC of a glitzy. Vegas show than a corporate chieftain as he took the stage before a standing-room-only crowd of camera-shop owners and photo buffs in America's gambling mecca. And the chief operating officer of Eastman Kodak Co. displayed a showman's bravado when he declared: "Kodak holds a winning hand." Certainly, some in the room figured Perez was bluffing. Kodak is desperately trying to reinvent itself for the Digital Age, and 58-year-old Perez, who oversaw Hewlett-Packard Co.'s rise to dominance in inkjet printers, was hired a year ago to lead the way. Kodak is in a race against time as its traditional film business disappears: Sales peaked at $14 billion in 1999 and have dropped to $13.3 billion in 2003. Today, Kodak finds itself in the awkward position of having to establish itself in a field dominated by others. It's a painful irony for the company. For a century, Kodak enjoyed near-monopoly power―until Fuji Photo Film Co. came along. Kodak even came up with the first digital camera in 1975. But it is only now that the company is starting to capitalize on the technology.