Lexmark Plans Broad Managed-Services Initiative

Printer vendor Lexmark International has made no secret that it wants to become a player in the managed print-services arena. To do so, it will be calling all partners on deck.

That already began taking shape this week--with its key partner Dell--when the computer vendor won an enterprise managed print services contract with aerospace giant Boeing. That announcement came on the heels of an agreement with N-Able and Level Platforms. But that's all icing on the cake.

According to a company official during a meeting with VARBusiness editors at Lexmark's headquarters in Lexington, Ky, the vendor is planning a much broader rollout this summer that will let partners sell and deliver managed print services to customers.

"What we are planning to bring to market is almost a hosted capability for our channel partners, where our channel partner leverages any of the services that they want to delivery directly," said Marty Canning, vice president and general manager of Lexmark's worldwide printing services and solutions division.

Canning said Lexmark has offered these capabilities for years for some of its largest enterprise customers; now the plan is to bring it down market.

"We are modifying these capabilities to bring them to the channel as rapidly as possible," Canning said.

Lexmark is working with some partners to develop this offering now, and intends to bring it to market next quarter. Many specifics are still being determined, most notably how Lexmark will enable channel partners to deliver these services.

Upfront investment will involve training and certification, and some infrastructure costs. Canning said Lexmark is still trying to determine what those will be, but said it would depend on the type and scope of services partners chose to offer.