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NEW YORK—Xerox Corp. this morning fine-tuned its vast array of digital copiers and multifunction printers under a new branding umbrella, expanded its office services and released a handful of new products, all in an effort to better serve the office customer.
To a customer-packed auditorium at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square here, Xerox officials spoke at length about the significance not only of technology, but the relationship between technology and users and a re-engineering of the process of utilizing that technology.
Embracing both issues will help businesses around the globe better manage their technologies, improve productivity, reduce cost and ultimately grow the bottom line.
“Our heritage has been in the office, but today we really talked about broadening the way we serve the office,” said Xerox Chairman and CEO Anne Mulcahy.
“Its an artful integration of people, process and technology,” Xerox Office Group President James Miller added.
Author and President of Hammer and Company, Michael Hammer echoed these sentiments. In an on-stage “conversation” with Mulcahy and EDVenture Holdings Chair and industry luminary Esther Dyson, Hammer said there are two keys to success: People can only benefit from technology if they change the process; and the process can only be changed when employees buy into it.
On the product front, Xerox unveiled a three-tiered branding strategy for its digital products: the CopyCentre line of digital copiers; the WorkCentre line of inexpensive multifunction printers (MFPs); and the WorkCentre Pro line of advanced MFPs.
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To augment the CopyCentre line, Xerox released the new CopyCentre C32 Color and C40 Color copiers. The C32 machine copies black and white documents at 32 pages per minute (ppm), and color pages at 16ppm. The C40 copies black and white pages at 40ppm and color at 22ppm.
In a copy cost twist, Xerox for the first time will charge C32 and C40 customers monochrome prices for black and white prices, and not the color pricing, which is the norm for color printers.
The models, available May 1, start at $2,299.
New with the WorkCentre multifunction devices are the WorkCentre M15 and M15i. The M15 starts at $899, is designed as an entry-level MFP device and offers copying and printing capabilities. It can attach to single PC or laptop or as an option, be networked.
The M15i adds color scanning and faxing capabilities to the machine.
In addition to digital product realignment, Xerox also announced plans to open up more products to its distribution channels. For example, the company will begin offering distributors and resellers the chance to sell Xerox MFPs. The move is in the form of a pilot program, and extends the sales to distributors who normally were only able to resell printers.