Shutterfly bids for Kodak Gallery


By Andrew Hudson Published: March 3, 2012 Updated: August 8, 2016

By Andrew Hudson Published: March 3, 2012 Updated: August 8, 2016

You will no longer be able to “Celebrate your Kodak moments, together.”

Shutterfly has bid $23.8 million for the 75 million customer accounts of Kodak Gallery. Kodak considers this to be “the initial, stalking horse bid in a Court-supervised auction process” and “is targeting completion of the sale process this spring.”

The bid does not include the 150 Kodak Gallery employees or intellectual property such as the Gallery’s recent iPhone and Android apps.

Coincidentally, Kodak Gallery officially launched on the very same day as Shutterfly, on December 13, 1999. Back then, it was known as Ofoto, an online photo sharing and printing service, and was the main rival to Shutterfly.

“While Shutterfly was funded in part by Silicon Valley businessman James Clark, Ofoto was funded in part by Jim Barksdale, Clark’s former partner and co-worker from Netscape. This led to the brief ‘Clark vs. Bark’ photo wars.”
Wikipedia

History of Ofoto/Kodak Gallery

  • 1999: Ofoto started in Berkeley, CA by Lisa Gansky and Kamran Mohsenin.
  • 2001: Bought by Eastman Kodak.
  • 2005: Renamed Kodak EasyShare Gallery.
  • 2008: 60 million users (source).
  • 2012: 75 million users (source).

What now for Kodak?

“Kodak is focusing its consumer business on retail and destination photo solutions as well as home printing products.”
— Kodak, March 1, 2012.

In related news, Kodak ended its Ektachrome film line on March 1, 2012. Kodachrome, the more iconic film, was ended in 2009.

Shutterfly

Interestingly, Shutterfly does not describe itself as an online photo-sharing and printing business but as “a leading Internet-based social expression and personal publishing service” (source).

In 2011, Shutterfly bought Tiny Prints, Inc. for around $333m (source) and reported a revenue of $473.3 million with an income of $35.4 million.

Source: Kodak press release, March 1, 2012 via CNN.

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