If your company is known for printers, a good business bet would be to stop selling printers
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If your company is known for printers, a good business bet would be to stop selling printers
Lexmark announced yesterday that it’s getting out of the inkjet printer business, and upon hearing the news, investors pushed the company’s stock up by 14 percent. If logic follows, McDonalds will stop selling burgers, Disney will send Mickey to a home for old mice, and Bank of America will no longer accept money.
Truth be told, Lexmark has been at it for a while.Printing is sooo Y2-aughts. From the Wall Street Journal:
Diminishing demand for Lexmark’s traditional printing products prompted the company in 2007 to start exiting its consumer inkjet business in favor of higher-performance printers for businesses and electronic-document management software.
I would have thought home printers were a total win for companies like Lexmark. I mean, you buy one for a hundred bucks or so, spend another $50 in a couple months to replace the ink, then the thing breaks within a year, and you start all over. That sounds pretty close to a money printing machine. I must be missing something. The company noted that it still sees a future in laser printers, because who wouldn’t – you get to print WITH LASERS! If you’re one of those poor, laser-less souls who has a Lexmark inkjet printer, you’d better stock up on ink refills now.
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