When Kodak is mentioned, the first thing that comes to mind is not an iPad-like tablet or smartphone. It’s either one of those film-based cameras or simply a paper photo. Maybe a Kodak-branded digital camera or other imaging technology product for those who have kept tabs with whatever the US-based company has been up to since its fall from grace.
Kodak wants to change that perception, shake its past and keep up with the present. Only that it might be choosing the wrong crowd to start with. Kodak has partnered with French mobile device brand Archos. The latter will make tablets under the Kodak brand and sell them in its home market, Europe under the terms of a licensing agreement signed between the two companies.
This is not the first time that Kodak is pursuing something like this. The company’s latest effort before the Archos tablets partnership was the Ektra smartphone, designed and manufactured by the Bullitt Group and named after a 1941 camera.
Neither company is saying much about what the tablet(s) will have other than that there will be an 8-megapixel camera, 3G-internet connectivity and some creative apps bundled.
Archos is known for producing budget mobile devices and the partnership with Kodak provides an opportunity for it to appeal to anyone remotely familiar with the Kodak brand and hope that translates into some sales. With tablet sales falling flat last year and expected to continue declining this year, they may need all the luck we can wish them.
In case this piece of news has anyone excited about the upcoming Koda-branded tablets then they will need to wait till Q3 and make sure they are living in Europe or else the only memory they have of Kodak will continue to be something like this:
