Earlier this year Hewlett-Packard ceased to supply the archrival Dell Computer with its printers, scanners and cameras, as a result, the number two computer vendor in the world decided to enter the market with its own products of the same kind. Of course, since Dell does not have its own manufacturing facilities, they have to outsource the manufacturing to a third-party, thus, the question was who of the printer manufacturers would make them for Dell. Presently the company sells printers from Canon, Brother, Epson and Lexmark. Today it became clear that Lexmark will be the preferred supplier of printers for Dell Computer.

Dell and Lexmark eventually signed two-phased agreement, under which Lexmark will develop and produce Dell inkjet and laser printers and related after-market cartridges that will be sold directly to customers using Dell’s channels.

Under the first phase of the agreement, Dell has selected Lexmark as its preferred supplier for non-Dell imaging products during the upcoming holiday purchasing period and beyond. By leveraging Lexmark’s imaging technologies in the second phase, Dell and Lexmark will pursue initiatives aimed at producing workgroup, small business and personal imaging products with features and capabilities unique to Dell, aligning product development, manufacturing and sales to best serve the needs of customers. Dell-branded imaging products will be launched in the market the first half of next year.

Basically, in 2003 we will see another printer supplier on the market. As we know, ink-jet printers nowadays does not cost much, while ink and toner cartridges are quite expensive. Dell always tries to offer very low prices and attract attention of the clients, some now assume that Dell may want to lower prices on the cartridges, attracting even more customers. Definitely, Hewlett-Packard will not favour from another player on imaging market.

It is not yet decided, who will supply other mentioned devices on a constant base to Dell.