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Nonetheless, Fisher readily admits that Kodak botched the launch last year of its 24-mm Advantix camera (price range: $50 to $250), the company's other major new high-tech consumer product. Kodak figured that shoppers would snap up a camera that loaded film in snafu-proof cassettes and produced high-quality photos that could be captured on film, filed easily and transferred to computers. But the launch, estimated to have cost $100 million, faltered for a lack of sufficient cameras in stores and a shortage of processors equipped with gear to develop the images. Now, for a fresh $100 million that includes a new ad campaign, the company is relaunching Advantix. Most of the action, though, is at the low-tech end of the business. In the $600 million market for hot-selling single-use cameras, the company remains under attack not only from Fuji but also from swarms of private-label manufacturers that are eating into Kodak's lead. Still other Kodak products--like medical X rays and writable CD-ROMs, storage devices that can hold images and data--have come under heavy price pressure.
Fisher launched the trade case in part to get Kodak on the offensive and force Fuji to raise prices. He took a similar tack at Motorola, using U.S. government negotiators to open the Japanese market for microchips. Last week House Speaker Newt Gingrich and minority leader Dick Gephardt urged President Clinton to use "all available means" to pry open Japan's market. Fuji denies any wrongdoing, and it is preparing to make the issue moot in the future by adding a 35-mm color-film plant, part of a $200 million investment, to its existing manufacturing complex in Greenwood, S.C. The new facility will have the capacity to turn out 100 million cost-competitive rolls a year when it opens in November.
"We're the heart and soul of the picture business," says Fisher, as if to rally the home team. That's certainly true. But even if Kodak wins its case, undoing Fuji's market inroads will be difficult. Indeed, the bitter rivalry with Fuji revives memories of epic U.S.-Japanese clashes over products such as steel, televisions and autos. All Fisher needs to do is look at the auto nameplates in the parking lot to judge the staying power of determined rivals.
--With reporting by Frank Gibney/Tokyo, Valerie Marchant/Rochester, Aixa M. Pascual/New York and Adam Zagorin/Washington