Xerox Rolls Out New Printers, Multifunction Device

The Stamford, Conn.-based company timed the product announcements with the kickoff of the TechXNY conference in New York. The rollout represents the latest volleys in a burgeoning war for market share among printer vendors.

Among the new products is the Phaser 6250, a 26 ppm color laser printer that replaces the Phaser 6200 in Xerox's lineup. The new printer will print at a resolution of 2,400 dpi and will come with Xerox's management software, executives said.

"High performance is really the key message [with the 6250]," said Brent Deuth, a Xerox product manager. "The target is workgroup sizes of five to 20 people, and it goes across all segments--small, medium and large businesses." The printer is built with a 700MHz processor and measures 12 seconds to first print, the company said. The 6250 is priced at $1,999.

Xerox also unveiled on Tuesday the Phaser 3450, a black-and-white printer with a street price of $549. The 3450 will replace the Phaser 3400 in Xerox's lineup, the company said. It prints at a resolution of 1,200 dpi;

Also new is the WorkCentre PE16, a multifunction device. The unit prints in black and white at 17 ppm and has scan and fax capabilities. Because it scans in color at up to 1,200 dpi, Xerox said the device is capable of sending color faxes. The PE16 also will be bundled with Omnipage SE optical character recognition software. Xerox has priced the device at $599.

Xerox also has updated its DocuShare management software. DocuShare 3.1 will permit the creation and management of Web pages, Web logs, to-do lists and other collaborative applications, the company said. The new version of the software is $4,045 for 10 seats, or $9,995 for 100 seats with add-on components available for an additional cost.

Xerox is engaged in an aggressive market-share battle with rivals including Oki Data and Lexmark in the color printer and multifunction printer space--especially in the SMB segment. All vendors have also been more aggressively engaging the solution provider channel, with Xerox executives recently saying they plan to streamline their massive, far-flung channel structure over the course of the next year to more easily work with partners and compete with other vendors.