The Hindu : Business : Xerox looks for greater market share in India

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 01, 2005

Business

Business

Xerox looks for greater market share in India

By R. K. Radhakrishnan

SAN FRANCISCO, MARCH 31. Having completed the settlement of its ownership issues in India, Xerox Corporation is preparing to carve out a larger share of the Indian market with a combination of introduction of frontier-technology based products and strategic marketing and distribution tie-ups.

"We have become majority owners in India and actually bought out our partner in India," said Anne M. Mulcahy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Xerox Corporation, when asked about the buying back of shares from the Modi group. "There is still some public ownership in India... This we may or may not buy out. Right now we are majority owners with clear control in India and I think that has been a positive decision in the Indian market," she said on the sidelines of `Xerox Color sense,' a major marketing event of the company, organised to announce the second part of the `colour everywhere strategy.'

About investment plans in India, the CEO said the fact that Xerox bought out the ownership itself was enough indication that the company was taking a keen interest in India. "We have already invested [a lot] in India. But [in the near future] I think you will see investments clearly particularly in marketing and distribution," she said.

Xerox participates in outsourcing with some of the India based companies too. "We work with Wipro... They work with us. They outsource some of their higher value kind of capabilities for scanning and imaging to some of our hosted services groups as well," she said, and added that the Xerox business was not focused on massive transactional nature that drives a lot of outsourcing to India.

Solid ink technology

Xerox Corporation today unveiled its office colour multifunction system with patented solid ink technology. Solid ink technology uses solid, polymer-based ink instead of powdered toner. Its imaging process works similar to an offset press but is designed for everyday office use. Xerox has protected the technology with more than 100 current and pending patents.

The Xerox WorkCentre C2424 multifunction system, aimed at small to medium-sized workgroups, is designed to deliver quality printing, copy and scanning performance in one integrated system at an estimated retail price of $2,999. It produces colour and black-and-white office documents, including text files, spread sheets and presentations at 24 pages a minute, "a speed level never before attained with a fully integrated product at this price," according to Xerox executives here.

"With this breakthrough product, we have extended Xerox's award-winning solid ink colour technology platform from single function printers to multi-function office systems," said Tim Williams, President, Xerox Office group. In addition to this, Xerox is launching three other office systems — C 118 black-and-white copier, M118/M118i black-and-white basic multifunction systems and EFI Fiery X12e controller for the Xerox DocuColor 12 colour copier/printer.

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