Eastman Kodak Inc

Paul Simon can kiss his Kodachrome goodbye: Eastman Kodak Co. is discontinuing the storied 74-year-old color film. As photographers gravitated to digital cameras and newer film, Kodachrome sales plunged to less than 1% of Kodak's total film sales. About 70% of the company's revenue now comes from digital sales. Kodachrome labs worldwide have dwindled to just one, Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kan., which will offer the service through 2010.

Eastman Kodak Co. said it had ended a long-standing patent dispute with Sony Corp. over digital-camera inventions dating to 1987 and entered a cross-licensing deal giving the companies access to each other's patents. The photography company also said it had signed a cross-license agreement with cellphone maker Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, a joint venture of Sweden's LM Ericsson and Sony.

Eastman Kodak Co. said Wednesday that it was selling its health-imaging business, created after the discovery of X-rays in 1895, to Canadian investment firm Onex Corp. for as much as $2.55 billion as the picture-taking pioneer bets its future on digital photography and commercial printing. Kodak said it planned to pay down about $1.15 billion in debt and funnel the rest of the proceeds into unspecified digital ventures as profits from its storied film business rapidly erode.

Eastman Kodak Co. is eliminating 3,000 more jobs this year as the picture-taking pioneer wraps up its wrenching transformation into a digital-imaging company focused on consumer photography and commercial printing. By year-end, its workforce will slip below 30,000, less than half what it was three years ago. On top of 27,000 layoffs already targeted, Kodak said Thursday that it was reducing its payroll even further to accommodate the $2.

Eastman Kodak Co. quit the Council of Better Business Bureaus as the group planned to expel the world's largest photography company for not responding to customer complaints. The company stopped answering complaints received by the New York Better Business Bureau about digital-camera repairs and customer-service problems last year, the Arlington, Va.-based council said.

Eastman Kodak Co.'s digital camera shipments fell 20% last year as the world's largest photography company limited sales of lower-priced devices to shore up profit, researcher IDC said. Rochester, N.Y.-based Kodak maintained third place in the worldwide digital camera market last year, behind Canon Inc. and Sony Corp., IDC analyst Christopher Chute said. The company's share shrank to 10%, or 10.6 million units, from 14.2%, or 13.1 million units, in 2005.

At Colgin Cellars, a kiss is not just a kiss. For years, vintner Ann Colgin has sealed bottles of her sought-after wine headed for auction with a bright-red lipsticked kiss on the label, a charming, and undeniably personal, certificate of authenticity. But with concerns growing about counterfeiters, she and other Napa Valley vintners are turning to high-tech fraud prevention so customers can feel confident they're taking home genuine wine.

On its bumpy journey into the digital era, Eastman Kodak Co. sped past a historic milestone last year by generating more revenue from digital imaging than from film-based photography, the company said Monday. But as Kodak posted its fifth quarterly loss in a row, many analysts questioned why the company's booming digital business wasn't helping the bottom line. "The revenue growth is there, but what level of profitability can they extract from it?"

Eastman Kodak Co. will increase prices on photographic film by as much as 17% to cover the rising cost of silver and oil. Prices for consumer and professional films will rise 3% and 17%, the Rochester, N.Y.-based company said. Some motion picture film prices will increase 3% to 5%. Higher prices will begin to go into effect May 1.

Eastman Kodak Co., undergoing a rough transition to digital photography, said Thursday that it was considering the sale of its pioneering health-imaging business after reporting a $298-million loss in the first quarter -- its sixth straight quarterly loss. Created a year after the discovery of X-ray film in 1895, the unit accounts for nearly one-fifth of Kodak's overall sales, but its operating profit plunged 21% last year as margins tightened. A sale would wipe out most or all of Kodak's $2.