New Printers Offer Innovation To Channel

The Lexington, Ky.-based vendor began shipping five new laser printers late last month. They will be available in 20 configurations, and Lexmark aims to aggressively price the top end of the line, executives said.

A key new feature of the printers is an operator panel that provides management and security functions through an ATM-style interface. For example, using the panel, users could assign a PIN to a print job at a remote location, which would be released only after an access code is typed into the device. The panel also can be customized with specific commands or software, according to Lexmark.

Solution providers will be able to add their own applications to the operator panel and the printers, said John Linton, vice president of Lexmark's solution provider channel. "We focus on enabling technology," he said. "With our technology, our partners can add their capabilities around it."

Lexmark has been under pressure in a sector that has seen extreme pricing declines initiated by rivals including Dell, Round Rock, Texas, and Hewlett-Packard, Palo Alto, Calif. However, some of its partners believe the company is taking the right steps with the latest lineup.

"It gives me a new item to discuss with my clients," said Floyd Eden, CEO of Ready Data, a New York-based Lexmark partner and solution provider. "I think it shows that Lexmark is being aggressive."

Eden said Lexmark must continue to be aggressive with new offerings and innovation in the channel to counter pricing erosion and aggressive measures by Dell, HP and other rivals including Xerox, Stamford, Conn., which also has been offering new technology and has made an aggressive push in the channel this year.

The new products are the T640, T642, T644 and W840 laser printers and the C920 color laser printer. Security features include document encryption, wrong PIN lockout, expiration of PIN-assigned documents not retrieved and enhanced document-accounting solution support. Lexmark also has added a direct USB interface to enable the printing of documents stored on portable USB drives.

Specific pricing wasn't immediately available, but Linton said the C920 would carry a street price of about $950 less than earlier-generation color laser printers.

The document solutions vendor also opened a new customer solution center in New York at the same time as the new product rollout. Lexmark said the facility will serve as a "state-of-the-art customer center" that will showcase the latest Lexmark solutions and technology.