Lexmark hosted more than 100 partners from the UK, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Benelux, Nordics, and Poland at its 2025 Channel Partner Summit held at The Hilton, Frankfurt on February 18 to 19. Michelle Ryder reports
The event served as a platform to launch an expanded line-up for Lexmark 9-Series printers and MFPs, AI-powered enhancements to its cloud services offering, as well as a new simplified structure of its Business Solutions Dealers (BSD) partner program.
One of the key takeaways at the event was the vendor’s firm focus on partner engagement and how that impacts its product design. Thomas Valjak, Vice President and General Manager of Lexmark EMEA set the scene explaining how following the launch of the first 9-Series devices last year, this latest release of three new models incorporates feedback from partners. He said: “We listen to you, we hear you, we take action.”
Lynn Triplett, who served as Chief Engineer of the 9-Series product family from its conception four years ago, stressed that within a competitive A3 market, acting on feedback is key. “We have conducted product support engagement in over 30 countries,” he said.
That engagement has led to direct action. Triplett illustrated how partner feedback and recommendations have been pivotal to the design process, expanding on several areas where Lexmark has taken action, including implementing a light shield which prevents ambient light entering devices during installation, adding new firmware to fix scanner issues, and creating new imaging units to prevent banding in mono half tone images.
The broadest line in its history
Historically, Lexmark has served the top one-third of the A4 market and in 2019 it extended its offering into the middle segment.
As Chris White, Senior Director Product Strategy and Portfolio Management explains, over the past two years, Lexmark has focused on bringing its proprietary A4 technology into the A3 space.
Building on the 9-Series models launched last year (CX833, CX961, CX962, CX963 and CS963), Lexmark has expanded the range with the new CX950, CX951 and MX953. The new devices also include two models specifically designed for authorised BSD partners – the Lexmark XC9525 and XC9535.
With the release of the three new 9-Series models, Lexmark now has the broadest line in its history. Its A4 offering is complemented with a range of colour and mono A3 printers and MFPs, with print speeds from 25 ppm up to 55 ppm, giving partners a complete portfolio of reliable, easy-to- maintain, and fast-to-service devices, and the ability to provide SMEs, through to large global enterprises with a Lexmark-only fleet.
Built to last
Simplicity is at the core of Lexmark’s channel offering. The company owns its own technology which enables it to be more flexible and agile. “We have full technology ownership end-to-end, we bring partners into the fold before launch, we show them the early design and listen to their feedback and we build acting on that,” White said.
One of the key tenets of Lexmark’s messaging is that its devices are designed for durability, Lexmark devices are built to last for an above industry average of over seven years. The company achieves this through robust in-house testing at its Lexington HQ. White explained that Lexmark printers and MFPs are put through their paces at a facility affectionally dubbed the ‘torture chamber’ where they are placed in a number of chambers replicating the most extreme conditions from freezing cold, to extreme heat, to high altitude.
With service margins tight, easy serviceability is also a key criterion for partners. “We build our devices to last, which helps take out service costs for our partners, and we also dramatically made things simpler,” White explained.
“Lexmark printers and MFPs have one access panel; we don’t dual layer components, which makes it much easier and quicker to remove and replace parts, and some lifetime parts can handle well in excess of 1.5 million pages. Partners also don’t need to spend days on in-person training to learn how to service our devices. They can simply complete an online training course and they’re ready to go,” he added.
Cloud-ready
Cloud-based remote diagnostic and repair functionality further simplifies the service piece, removing the requirement to physically be on a customer’s site.
The firmware is cloud-ready, so after a one-time set up via Lexmark’s cloud- based portal, partners can remotely manage customers’ fleets without needing to be onsite or on the same local network.
As Iain MacLean, Director of Professional Services explains, so long as there is an internet connection, partners can enroll devices in the cloud, download software, install security settings, solutions – whatever they need.
“All partners have access to Lexmark Cloud Fleet Management (CFM), it’s foundational to their business. That’s why, the end goal is to fully automate the deployment process, currently these tasks require pressing a few buttons, but we are working towards further enhancements to CFM which will further simplify everything – that’s what we mean when we talk about disruptive technology,” he explained.
AI-powered cloud solutions
MacLean continued: “There are currently three components to Lexmark Cloud Services (LCS) – Cloud Connector, Solution Manager and Translation Assistant. What we are doing is adding in more functionality and converging it all into the new AI-powered Lexmark Cloud Solution Centre, giving partners the opportunity to resell and monetise cloud-based solutions.
LCS now provides a unified cloud architecture that helps partners and customers efficiently manage their devices; secure and optimise their output and workflows; and generate new revenue opportunities. The new Cloud Solution Centre streamlines document workflows with capture, process and routing capabilities and incorporates three main AI-powered features – OCR – for creating searchable documents; translation services to convert documents into the desired language – (this is similar to the Translation Assistant launched last year but is now performed in the cloud); and redaction capabilities to remove sensitive or personal identifiable information from documents.
The pricing structure is still to be determined, however according to MacLean, it will be simple and support partners to consult with customers, add value, drive savings, and earn additional revenue.
Helping partners to differentiate and grow
One of the overriding messages across the event was the focus Lexmark places on helping its partners to differentiate and grow, summed up by Melanie Hudson, Senior Vice President & Chief Commercial Officer who said: “Lexmark’s value lies in our partners. We’re winning and growing together.”
Danny Molhoek, VP of EMEA Sales talked about the need for partners to embrace a paradigm shift and in support of that, he outlined fresh new elements of its BSD program and how it’s designed to be about much more than the price of the hardware and click.
Lexmark has simplified its three- tier BSD partner program, introducing new benefits for Silver partners, enhanced benefits for Gold partners, and expanded benefits for Diamond partners. In addition, the vendor has built in A3, options, and extended warranty discounts for all BSD partners, and announced it is moving away from complex promotions.
Following the formal briefings and hands-on sessions, partners were invited to enjoy a fantastic dinner in the magnificent setting of Frankfurt’s old Opera House (Alte Oper).
