Stefan Mileschin

After years of selling cut-price printers, Lexmark has decided to give up and focus on its more profitable imaging and software businesses.

Although Lexmark will sell laser printers, it said that it will sell more than 1,000 inkjet-related patents and would cut 1,700 jobs, or 13 percent of its workforce.

Printer makers have had problems with falling sales. According to Reuters it is all because corporates are rushing to buy Apple tablets, however it is more likely that ink-jets have become out-dated by cheaper and better laser printers. This killed off the ink-jet model, as defined by HP, where people had to mortgage their house to pay for ink cartridges.

The inkjet market declined nearly 13 percent in the second quarter.

Lexmark said that revenue from inkjet hardware and supplies, which accounted for 21 percent of revenue last year, is to drop to about 10 percent in 2013.

It will continues to supply ink and support printers it already sold.

The company had already laid off 625 employees related to manufacturing consumer ink supplies in January.

http://news.techeye.net/hardware/lexmark-dumps-inkjets