Xerox has won several new document services deals and
updated its content management and workflow software.
HSBC has selected Xerox to provide document services in its
Brazil and UK offices that will include equipment replacement and
outsourced print management operations. The contracts are valued at
$11m (£6.1m) and $12m, respectively.
Xerox also landed a contract to provide Chicago aerospace
company The Boeing with a new document management system, a deal
Xerox Global Services president Tom Dolan valued "in the tens of
millions".
Xerox will install 5,000 networked Xerox devices in Boeing's
offices and implement new Xerox document management software in an
effort to cut Boeing's document costs.
Xerox's services group did $3bn in business last year, although
most of that came from the company's document management
outsourcing business.
One analyst tracking Xerox, independent consultant Amy Wohl,
estimates the company's business consulting services revenue at
around $300m annually.
Xerox chairman and chief executive officer Anne Mulcahy said
that "value-added services" business is on track to grow 20% this
year.
Still, the company's outsourcing business remains core. Xerox
said it has tripled the size of its image services centre to meet
increasing customer demand for records retention and disaster
recovery planning. The facility now totals 162,000sqft and can
process one billion images annually.
Xerox's transition from an office equipment maker to a broader
technology and consulting services company has been several years
in the making, and analysts say it is proceeding well.
"They've done much better than I expected them to, frankly,"
said Wohl. "They're still not an IBM, but they're not trying to be
that broad. In some of the areas they're in, they're the only one
in the market. They're quite serious in high-end paper-based
content management."
Mulcahy said Xerox sees three components to the
content-management services market: The production services sector
in which it dominates, and the office and business process services
spaces where it competes with numerous other suppliers, including
IT behemoths Hewlett-Packard and IBM and a host of smaller
specialists.
In her keynote presentation to analysts attending a company
briefing in New York, Mulcahy said Xerox is considering alliances
and acquisitions to strengthen its offerings in high-growth
areas.
In a later interview, she identified the business-process market
as one area in which Xerox is exploring partnering with or buying
consulting specialists.
To support its services work, Xerox is steadily building up its
software portfolio. It also released the latest version of
DocuShare, its web-based content management software, and added
several new applications to its FreeFlow line of workflow
automation software. One new application, SmartSend, ties together
Xerox's FlowPort and CentreWare Scan Services products to create a
server-based application (built on Microsoft's net platform) for
transmitting paper documents to disparate devices and electronic
systems.
For example, a sales order can be scanned into SmartSend,
converted to various formats such as Microsoft Word, Excel or PDF
(Portable Document Format), and transmitted throughout an
organization to e-mail accounts, online repositories or remote
printers in various locations.
Wohl said Xerox's biggest challenge is successfully marketing
its products. "The real threat for Xerox is execution, and always
has been. They've always been a technology leader."
Stacy Cowley writes for IDG News Service