Lexmark
 | This article contains weasel words: vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. (April 2012) |
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| NYSE: LXK S&P 500 Component | |
| Industry | Computer hardware |
| Founded | 1991 |
| Headquarters | Lexington, Kentucky, U.S |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Paul Curlander (Chairman) Paul Rooke (President and CEO) |
| Products | Printers Scanners Printer ink |
| Revenue |  US$ 4.200 billion (2010)[1] |
| US$ 447 million (2010)[1] | |
| US$ 340 million (2010)[1] | |
| Total assets | US$ 3.705 billion (2010)[1] |
| Total equity | US$ 1.394 billion (2010)[1] |
Number of employees | 13,200 (December 2010)[1] |
| Website | http://www.lexmark.com/ |
Lexmark International, Inc. (NYSE: LXK) is an American corporation which develops and manufactures printing and imaging products, including laser and inkjet printers, multifunction products, printing supplies, and services for business and individual consumers. The company is headquartered in Lexington, Kentucky.
History
Lexmark was formed in 1991 when IBM divested its printer and printer supply operations to the investment firm Clayton & Dubilier, Inc. in a leveraged buyout.[2][3] Lexmark became a publicly traded company in 1995. In those early days, IBM became Lexmark's main customer for keyboards, as IBM contracted Lexmark to produce the Model M keyboard and some more cost-effective variants of it[4].
IBM believed at the time that due to the development in technology there was no future anymore for a profitable printer business: the "paperless office" was expected to become reality soon.
Operations
The firm's corporate and R&D offices are located at the headquarters in Lexington. Lexmark has offices throughout North and South America, Asia, Africa and Europe. The company has more than 13,000 employees worldwide. Lexmark was a Fortune 500 company until they were ranked #507 in the 2009 Fortune 500 rankings. In addition to manufacturing hardware under their own name, Lexmark also does third party development of printers for other major companies, such as Dell and IBM InfoPrint.
Products
Lexmark specializes in printers and printer accessories. Its current range of products includes color and monochrome laser printers and inkjet printers, both of which may include scanners (including all-in-one devices with faxing and copying capabilities and photo printers), and dot matrix printers. Lexmark was one of the first companies to release Wi-Fi inkjet printers and the very first to release printers with a web-enabled touchscreen. They also offer a wide variety of laser printers with software solutions for more professional printing environments.
A specialized series of printers are - if equipped with separately sold accessory cards (one memory card to hold data and one Lexmark Form card) - capable of interpreting textual data and converting them into forms. To create the forms required for this to work, one uses the software package "Lexmark Forms Composer", a proprietary package available from Lexmark aimed at developers. This same type of software is put into use on the newer releases of Lexmark printers with their business card scanning capabilities.
As of August 28. 2012, Lexmark announced that it will be stopping production of its inkjet printer line in a restructuring attempt.[5][6] By doing so, Lexmark will close a inkjet supplies manufacturing facility in the Philippines by the end of 2015. It expects to save $85 million annually, rising to $95 million by 2015. It will also be eliminating inkjet development worldwide, cutting 1,700 jobs, 1,100 of which are in the manufacturing process.
Legal cases
A court victory in 2005 was handed to Lexmark in the case of ACRA v. Lexmark. This case states that Lexmark can enforce the “single use only” policy written on the side of Lexmark printer cartridge boxes sold to certain large customers at a discount, with the understanding that the customers will return the cartridges to Lexmark after using them. This means that these customers can face lawsuits if they breach the agreements, and do not return the cartridges.
Also in 2005, Lexmark suffered a legal defeat in the case of Lexmark Int'l v. Static Control Components, when the US Supreme Court rejected Lexmark's petition for a writ of certiorari, thereby rejecting their attempt to have the Court hear their case. In this case, the defendant was a manufacturer of microchips that allowed third-party ink and toner cartridges to work on printers, including many manufactured by Lexmark. Such printers incorporated a feature that would require authentication from a microchip within the ink/toner cartridge in order to function; this was designed to prohibit users from refilling the cartridges. Yet a recent firmware update allowed Lexmark to prevent end-users from refilling ink cartridges or using third-party ink cartridges.
Lexmark inkjet printers also incorporate a feature which disables the use of black-and-white printing if cyan ink is missing or depleted.
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f "2010 Form 10-K, Lexmark International, Inc". United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
- ^ "IBM Archives: 1991".
- ^ Lewis, Peter H. (1991-12-22). "The Executive Computer; Can I.B.M. Learn From a Unit It Freed?". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-05-07.
- ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_keyboard#History
- ^ "Lexmark announces restructuring". Retrieved 28 August 2012.
- ^ "Lexmark to exit inkjet printer market". Retrieved 28 August 2012.