Industry Notes for the week of May 16

Industry Notes for the week of May 16

Chatbooks suffers security breach; no user cards compromised

Nate Quigley, CEO of Chatbooks, advised users the company had a security breach March 26. No credit card information was compromised, but users are requested to change their passwords.

Minilab Evolution: Smaller, Faster and Better

A round up the leading photo print system providers, by Kim Brady writing at Digital Imaging Reporter.

Digital Imaging Reporter recognizes counter sales superstars

Digital Imaging Reporter presented its 2020 Superstars behind the Counter salute. The winners were nominated by their managers, their peers as well as manufacturers who recognize their value and appreciate their tireless efforts on the front lines every day.

Pro Photography News

Lessons learned when a dream photo studio met harsh new reality

Nicole Mason has run The Portland Studio, a rental space for fellow photographers, for three years. Now she is looking at closing, due to COVID-19, via Rangefinder.

Sony extends Pro support memberships for six more months

Sony has announced it will be automatically extending all PRO Support memberships for an additional 6 months, via PetaPixel.

Mobile App News

Facebook buys GIPHY for $400 million

Facebook announced it has purchased GIF search engine GIPHY, and will integrate it with Instagram. The company said one-quarter of GIPHY’s traffic comes from Instagram alone. Crunchbase reports the acquisition price was $400 million.

App updates

Perfectly Clear for Business adds ways to get image data into and out of SDK

EyeQ added new ways to get image data into and out of the Perfectly Clear for Business SDK. Most of the new functions and features allow opening and writing to images without that data needing to be written to an actual JPEG image and saved to disk.

Financial news

CEWE reports “stable” first-quarter results

Oldenburg-based photo printer CEWE Stiftung & Co. KGaA reported first-quarter growth, despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Sales increased 4.1% over that of the same quarter of the previous year, to 144.8 million euros (Q1 2019: 139.2 million euros).

Kodak reports lower sales and greater loss in first quarter

Eastman Kodak Co. reported a first-quarter loss of net loss of $111 million on consolidated revenues of $267 million. 

Mitsubishi Electric announces consolidated financial results for fiscal 2020

According to a press release, revenue for fiscal 2020 decreased by 57.4 billion yen from the previous fiscal year to 4,462.5 billion yen due to a decrease in revenue of Industrial Automation Systems segment, despite that revenue increased in Information and Communication Systems, Home Appliances, Energy and Electric Systems, and Electronic Devices segments.

People on the Move

Imagely announces Nathan Signh is CEO, merges with Envira Gallery

Imagely, a leading provider of WordPress products and services for photographers, announced seasoned investor and entrepreneur Nathan Singh as the new owner and CEO. Singh brings substantial knowledge of the WordPress gallery plugin market and a deep appreciation for photography and photographers.

Google Pixel camera leader Marc Levoy leaves Google

The Information reports the chief architect behind Google’s Pixel camera, Marc Levoy, who last year showed off his team’s photography advances during a Google event in New York City, left the company in March. The exit follows the departure of Pixel phone general manager Mario Queiroz, the second top executive to leave in less than a year.

Christof Bergmann named managing director of Germany’s FOTOPROFI GmbH

Former Calumet CEO Christof Bergmann becomes a new member of the management of FOTOPROFI GmbH, according to FOTOwirtschaft. He becomes the third managing director alongside David Primm and Julius Raether.  The company was created in 2018 through the merger of the previously independent dealers fotofrenzel, Photo Planet, foto-markt and Hobby FOTO.