Xerox Launches Channel Expansion

As Xerox looks to expand its channel reach, it will target VARs based more on their competencies and interests than their size, said Anne Mulcahy, CEO of Xerox, at the company's Partner Summit in Orlando, Fla., last month.

"We're not just focused on the largest resellers; we're focused on those that have the capacity to have document-management capabilities that we think make us great partners together," she says. "We see the IT reseller as the heartland for all of our printer and A4 products, and an increasingly attractive partner for integrated solutions that will take us more upmarket from a technological perspective."

Also, Xerox has started to open up some of its higher-end A3 print-production systems to a targeted group of IT VARs. Those products, traditionally the domain of the company's agent channel, require more training and support from Xerox than do the lower-end offerings.

Because of the volume of pages printed in the high-end production market, and the amount of money that translates to, Xerox isn't alone in looking to expand its reach into that market as hardware margins continue to get thinner. Earlier this year, Ricoh announced it would acquire IBM's Printing Systems Division, and Sharp entered the market in February.

Mulcahy says also that Xerox has developed a prototype of its first solid-ink-based production system. Hewlett-Packard, too, has said it's refining its ink-based technology, called Edgeline, to be used in the vendor's higher-end production printers.

But services is where Xerox is focusing its energy, and the company is luring resellers to its camp with programs and tools to help them make the transition from selling boxes to providing managed services in the printing arena. While many VARs at the summit were bullish on moving into services, they expressed concern about recruiting staff to sell such offerings.

"This is one area where training and support systems are a big deal, and we hope to have a lot of that available," Mulcahy said. "Most people want to be in more of a relationship-based selling approach than a transactional-based one, so you need to give people that access to the customer lifecycle."