Updates from Xerox, Mutoh and Canon

The big news of the week was the Xerox split.

 

Ursula Burns, chief executive of the 19.5bn dollars Xerox business, who announced the break-up plan, said: “Xerox is taking affirmative steps to drive shareholder value by announcing it will separate into two strong, independent, publicly traded companies."

 

The two businesses will be Document Technology (including production printing) with sales of circa 11bn dollars (7.7bn pounds), and Business Process Outsourcing with a turnover of around 7bn dollars.

 

Following the company's Q4 and full-year results, Burns said the Document Technology business could see strong profitability and cashflow through “operational discipline and a commitment to transformative productivity”.

 

“Despite secular declines in the printing industry, our Document Technology business remains highly profitable with annuity-driven revenue representing more than 70% of our sales,” she said.

 

Industry expert, Simon Eccles commented about the development, "It's too early to say if it will work for HP, which like Xerox initially decided it would rather be in the services business than hardware, then split in two to try and keep both."

 

Eccles added, "It sort-of worked for IBM, which first spun off its Lexmark desktop printers, then sold its computer hardware business to Lenovo (which has done rather well), then its InfoPrint high-end printers to Ricoh (ditto)."

 

Meanwhile, wide-format machinery manufacturer Mutoh has launched two new additions to its ValueJet X series.

 

The ValueJet 1324X has replaced the 1324 model

 

The machines, which are engineered and manufactured in Japan, join the 1.62m-wide ValueJet 1624X single-head and ValueJet 1638X dual-head models in the ValueJet X series.

 

Recently, Mutoh was in the news for obtaining a pan-European Indoor Air Comfort Certificate, which makes the UMS inks suitable for the production of certified indoor decorative prints.

 

Mutoh is represented by Negi in India.

 

And finally, Canon launched three UV flatbed Océ Arizona models: 1240, 1260 and 1280. The models are aimed at the sign and display, speciality print, reprographics and photo lab sectors and print at up to 35sqm per hour in express mode. The 1200 series has an additional roll media option for flexible media up to 2.2m-wide.