Lexmark Combines Laser, Inkjet Divisions

Lexmark International announced Friday it is combining its two major printing operations -- inkjet and laser -- into a single organization to target additional sales to businesses.

The combination of Lexmark’s Printing Solutions and Services Division and the Imaging Solutions Division will be named Imaging Solutions and Services (ISS).

The new organization will be led by Marty Canning as Lexmark executive vice president and president of ISS. The announcement follows a management shakeup at Lexmark in which longtime chairman and CEO Paul Curlander will retire and Paul Rooke was named to lead Lexmark as president and chief executive.

“Lexmark’s strategy of shifting our inkjet technology upstream to high-usage business customers now offers us the opportunity to simplify our processes across our R&D, marketing and sales teams into a single organization, Imaging Solutions and Services,” said Rooke in a statement. “The combination of the divisions will enable us to bring more value to customers (and) more consistency to our products.”

The company, which reported sales of more than $4 billion in 2009, has been improving its all-in-one devices’ capabilities to print, scan, copy and fax. It has also fired up its printer apps effort by opening its Software Development Kit platform to outside software developers so they can create apps for Lexmark products. The app platform has more than 60 apps developed by Lexmark and its partners, and the company believes a revenue-sharing plan will attract outside developers to create apps for the platform.

Lexmark said Perceptive Software remains a standalone operation and will continue to be led by Scott Coons, a Lexmark vice president. The unit’s products operate easily with many ERP, CRM and line-of-business applications.

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