It’s a part of a new division at the company, one called Staples Technology Services, that recently announced a major new business-to-business initiative.

In addition to maintaining and managing PCs, servers and networks, the new division is in the business of managing companies’ printing infrastructure: “printing solutions, including comprehensive printer fleet management that maximizes an organization’s assets and saves money.”

The interesting issue is whether Staples will get into the management of copier/MFPs as well as desktop printers. There was a time when copiers weren’t part of the overall IT setup, but those days are long past. If Staples is offering a soup-to-nuts approach to IT and print management, that means integrating copier/MFPs, printer/MFPs and single-function printers. And that means that copier dealers have yet another thing to worry about.

There’s not much chance that Staples will start servicing Canon or Xerox copiers. But there are two likely consequences — replacing at least some of their clients’ copier fleets with high-end printer multifunctionals, a direction the industry is already going in. Second, there’s the possibility of Staples partnering with either a national copier vendor or with local dealers. In either case, it would be likely to be Staples calling the shots on pricing, contract terms and proportion of dealer-channel equipment and retail market machines.

The Staples announcement confirms several trends already in evidence. The concept of offering comprehensive IT and document imaging services is the direction that companies like HP, Dell and Xerox have escalated in recent years. In the more narrow copier-printer area, managed print services is the hottest trend, and vendors and dealers are scrambling to find and train people who can manage and service such contracts. The concept of selling isolated boxes gets more and more irrelevant, while integrated, managed services with reduced overall costs is becoming the industry norm. Staples has the name, the geographic coverage and the bargaining power to become a serious contender.

The company will triple the number of models available off the shelves in the stores. According to reports, Lexmark plans to offer a more expensive range of both laser and ink jet models, aimed at the small office user. The company will also roll out a sales-education campaign to help make superstore salespeople more aware of the Lexmark product line.

Lexmark has been most successful selling low-cost ink jets through mass merchandisers like Wal-Mart and Target, where it has sold its least expensive ink jet machines. Lexmark plans to offer higher-end products in these stores as well.

The demise of Circuit City, which did prominently feature Lexmark models, was a blow to the company. As one as one online source puts it:

“With most of the brand’s exposure confined to Circuit City, the loss of the electronics giant meant a significant drop in the number of Lexmark printer models that consumers can get to.”

According to an article on the Lexington Herald Leader (“Lexmark to pursue superstore customers”), Lexmark will not be getting into one key superstore:

“The company has not yet been able to get back into Best Buy after the chain took its printers off the shelves last year and decided to sell them only on BestBuy.com. {A Lexmark spokesman} noted that Best Buy has reduced the space it allots in stores for printers after the economy contributed to a decline in sales for the category.”