WhatTheyThink spoke with Xerox’s Gina Testa to gain a deeper understanding of the company’s new enterprise print services model.  There have been a number of announcements over the last couple of years that have created a stir in the printing industry, with concerns about vendors competing with their customers.  Testa was quick to say, “In no way does this communicate that we are going outside the enterprise and trying to bring commercial printing back in. It merely deals with the status quo of internal print, whether it is done at the desktop, on a multifunctional device or in the in-plant print ship, and hoping to make all of those areas more efficient. The cool part is connecting the virtual worker, who many be working on the road or at home, with the main enterprise. For the fist time, we are offering a direct connection from the worker to the in-plant so they don’t have to make a conscious decision about whether work should be produced in the workgroup or in the in-plant. It is up to the enterprise customer to make the rules and recommendations about which print should go where.”

Testa points out that Xerox already had a similar offering called Xerox Office Services, which EPS expands to improve the connection among all of the printing resources within the enterprise.  She says, “We try to educate users and the software we use is intelligent enough that once specifications are laid out, if the user chooses a printer that is not the most cost effective, he or she will be pinged with a message that lets them know the location of a more cost effective printer for the job.”  Test adds that in many cases, office worker behavior needs to be changed, primarily because the cost of office printing is often an area into which they have little visibility. “This should not have a negative impact on the graphic communications industry,” she says, “because this is work they are not doing today at all; it is being produced internally to the enterprise.”

WhatTheyThink also checked in with Standard Register, who has long had a similar offering and was one of the few that analyzed the costs across the enterprise, including outsourced print, to determine how it could be done more cost effectively.  Standard Register is still offering those services, but has sold the related intellectual property to Pharos and is using Pharos as a partner to provide that infrastructure.

Other questions we had for Xerox included:


  • Is this a multivendor solution, or does it require working with all Xerox print engines?  Testa assured us that it is a multivendor solution and if the enterprise has non-Xerox printers, they are part of the infrastructure.

  • Does EPS also take into account outsourced work, similar to the Standard Register offering?  Testa reports that at this time, the services are focused entirely on the enterprise and that management of outsourced work might be an enhancement at some future time, although no definite plans are in place to do so.

  • Will EPS be moved to ACS as part of the acquisition?  There seems to be some crossover.  Xerox responded to this question by indicating that there is still a great deal of work going on to finalize the ACS acquisition.  They were unable to comment much more on what might be done in this area, saying, “Once the acquisition is complete, we will be able to provide a much clearer explanation.”


Testa indicates several large organizations have already signed up for the service, concluding, “We have been in this business for a very long time, and in fact, were probably one of the inventors of the concept.  Enterprise Print Services is basically a new name for an existing service that has been significantly enhanced to connect the enterprise printing ecosystem from the desktop to the in-plant shop within the enterprise.  It is not intended to have an adverse impact on the commercial printing industry, but rather, a very positive announcement for the printing world at large, and especially for enterprises struggling to contain these costs.”