Two recent acquisitions suggest that a quiet struggle may be brewing between Xerox and Hewlett-Packard in the area of outsourced managed print services -- a struggle that could soon break out in a full-fledged strategic battle.
The day after HP announced its plan to buy Salt Lake City-based Printelligent -- a company that offers infrastructure, software and workers to be coordinated with HP's existing sales channels and broader services for small and medium-sized business clients -- Xerox made an announcement of its own.
Xerox, identifying itself the market leader in managed print services, said it would expand the business by adding British print consultancy and software company NewField IT as a wholly owned subsidiary.
Neither HP nor Xerox talked about the value of the acquisitions of their privately held targets -- as is often the case when the target isn't publicly traded, and the purchaser's strategic plan is still being formulated.
But despite their reluctance to quantify the latest deals, both acquirers were clear that their acquisitions fenced out the managed print territory for expansion.
'Software Suite' for Printing
On Printelligent's website, the company said it did business in more than 700 cities in 39 states, managing about 500 million printed documents annually for clients. NewField's available information was sketchier on its website, however, not mentioning its reach, volume of work, or employment levels, for example.
http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/cl...me/News.asp?id=62804
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