Xerox pitches its colorful appeal
Five products, two consulting deals unveiled at trade show
(May
2006) – What separates Xerox Corp. from its competitors in the color
printing industry is a broad product line and document management
offerings, company officials told an industry gathering Tuesday.“Now
more than ever, regardless of the size of the enterprise, if you want
color … you want Xerox,” Jim Firestone, Xerox North America President
told a gathering at the AIIM/On Demand print trade show in
Philadelphia. Firestone spoke at a town hall-style meeting hosted by
Howie Long, the former NFL Oakland and Los Angeles Raider who now does
studio analysis for the Fox network.At the trade show Tuesday, Xerox
launched five new products: a 50-page per minute edition of its
DocuColor press, three versions in its WorkCentre line of multifunction
copiers, and a new Phaser laser printer.But Firestone said that
increasingly the hardware that produces the document is not the biggest
piece of the equation.Managing the information that gets produced is
how Xerox helps companies stay better organized and more productive, he
said.To drive home that point, the company also announced two large
consulting deals: a seven-year, $36 million deal with the University of
Calgary and a four-year $17 million extension of a deal with the
Intercontinental Hotels Group, owners of Holiday Inn among other
chains.Those types of service-based deals demonstrate Xerox’s ability
to help customers fully understand technology, manage the thousands of
documents they produce daily and save money, Firestone said.During the
meeting, Eric Hardaway, vice president for global technology at
Intercontinental, said the previous deal with Xerox saved his company
$1.2 million. The contract extension could save Intercontinental $4
million more, he said.The product launch comes as competition continues
to intensify in the lucrative high-end of the color printing market.In
an indication of how pitched the competition has become,
Hewlett-Packard Co. will announce today that it has sold one of its
Indigo digital presses to DPI, a Rochester commercial printer, beating
out Xerox and Eastman Kodak Co.’s NexPress for the deal.DPI Executive
Vice President – and co-owner – Matt Kellman said Indigo’s liquid ink
printing method offered better quality than toner-based products. This
is his company’s first foray into digital printing and will help DPI
compete for short-run printing business Kellman said