As Lexmark evolves, focus moves from printers to software

The name is complicated, however the idea is simple. Printer companies are working to make themselves invaluable to businesses by getting more involved in the flow of information, regardless of whether it ever shows up on a printed page.

Lexmark continued to bolster those software offerings last month with its purchase of Netherlands-based Pallas Athena for $50.2 million. The company specializes in what's called business process management in which its software interfaces with other data bases to make workflow easier.

Vehicle accident insurance claim as an illustration

Take a vehicle accident insurance claim as an illustration, said Darren Knipp, chief research officer of Perceptive Software, which will oversee Pallas Athena. To complete questions in a claim form, Pallas Athena's software will interface with other data bases to find the answers. The software as well could route the claim to a particular customer service person based on certain factors.

One of the original employees afterwards the company was spun off from IBM in 1991, Rooke recalls the origins of Lexmark, when the company had more dot-matrix printers than laser printers in its fleet of products.

"At first sight, it was basic printing; at the time it evolved to managed services," he said of the industry revolution of the past decade, while which printer companies have managed businesses' printing by choosing the most efficient printer setups. "Now it's extending into the businesses' content and particularly this unstructured content, stuff that comes off of paper, and now into business process management and workflow management."

As companies and consumers begin to think more about their environmental footprint, many are beginning to print less. As the entire printer industry is maturing in terms of pages printed, companies have turned increasingly to software to boost revenue and profits. It allows them to strengthen their hold on clients, who are finding the companies helpful in finding efficiencies.

Lexmark's software is competing with those of other companies just as industry giant HP, which acquired enterprise software company Autonomy last month. It's as well competing to make businesses more efficient with the likes of Xerox, which acquired business process outsourcer ACS last year.

"HP can do Perceptive-like things and at the time do business analytics on the data that Perceptive has rendered," she said. "They can take it a step furthermore. The question is: Does Lexmark ever get to that point?"

The same time

"This solution concept is all merging at the same time," Cross said. "It's going to be important for them to decide what they can do successfully and how far they want to go into business analytics."