Lexmark International is to lay off 1,700 people as part of a restructuring plan that will see it exit the consumer space and cease inkjet printer manufacturing.
The restructuring includes the loss of 1,100 manufacturing positions in the Philippines by the end of 2015 and eliminating other inkjet development assets by the end of 2013.
While the company will stop offering inkjet printers, it will continue to provide support, services and supplies for its inkjet installed base, acording to Marty Canning, Lexmark executive vice president and president of imaging solutions and services. Supplies will continue to be available through the channel and the company’s website, and warranties will still be honoured.
Lexmark will now exit the consumer business and focus on enterprise products, including higher-margin products such as multifunction printers, managed print services, content management and other software products, Canning said. Lexmark is also working with advisers to explore the sale of its inkjet-related technology.
Devices like multifunction printers and laser printers are either higher margin or bring additional revenue through value-added services such as imaging and content management.
Lexmark may be known for its printers, but the company has been serving enterprises for a long time, and the company’s software strategy is key to fueling growth in the enterprise market, Canning said.
The company wants to extend its imaging and content management capabilities from just scanning and capturing data, to making sense of data once it’s captured, and moving documents effectively to databases and ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems. To that extent, the company will continue to develop its ‘intelligent capture’ tools and also build its software strategy around structured and unstructured data, Canning said.
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