Yesterday, 
Lexmark announced a 1,700 employee job cut and an end to manufacturing consumer inkjet printers, in a cost cutting and restructuring maneuver. The company plans on shutting down its inkjet supply manufacturing center in the Philippines by 2015 and an end to all inkjet development by next year. Lexmark chairman and CEO Paul Rooke says the announcement, “represents difficult decisions, which are necessary to drive improved profitability and significant savings.”
In recent years, Lexmark fell behind rivals Canon and HP in inkjet printer reliability and sales figures, opting to sell its products based on the included software’s features and with unique form-factors, such as the Lexmark Genesis series.
Investors reacted favorably to yesterday’s restructuring news, with Lexmark stock up 13 percent by 9:50 AM that morning (the biggest gain since July, 2011). Rooke claims Lexmark’s future success lies with a focus on, “higher value imaging and software solutions.” With an increasing tendency for consumers to eliminate paper clutter by using document scanners and electronic storage, this may be a result we see repeated with other printer manufacturers in the future.
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