Xerox Buys Tektronix Printer Division

Xerox Corp., based here, acquired Tektronix Inc.'s Color Printing and Imaging Division, based in Wilsonville, Ore., today for $950 million to complement Xerox's black-and-white workgroup printers with Tektronix's office color printing and solid-ink technology. The acquisition, Xerox's largest ever, will bring to the Xerox team all 2,400 Tektronix employees worldwide, led by Jerry Meyer, chairman and CEO of Tektronix.

"We see a future in black-and-white, but we also see a future in color, and we want to have our foot in both camps," says Anne Mulcahy, executive vice president, General Markets Operations for Xerox Corp.

The Tektronix Phaser color-laser and solid-ink printers, which garnered nearly $725 million in sales last year, will help Xerox become a strong No. 2 competitor of Hewlett-Packard Co. As a result of the acquisition, Xerox's distribution capacity will nearly double to more than 16,000 resellers and dealers worldwide.

The details of how the acquisition will affect channel partners still need to be worked out. "We're just getting started. Clearly, we're going to try to integrate our [VAR] programs, but those details need to be sorted out," says Jim Firestone, president of Xerox channels group.

"We are very pleased that our color-printer business will join Xerox's document imaging business. They complete and extend each other's competence in every way," says Meyer. "We fought a constant battle of not being able to battle the brand of larger companies. Partnering with Xerox gives us that global brand and reach."

Executives at Xerox expect most Tektronix products to take on the Xerox brand name.

In VARBusiness' 1999 APEX awards, Xerox placed third in a field of four printer manufacturers, behind HP and Lexmark International Inc., which tied for first.