No financial figures at all were released on IBM’s decision to hand its US copier contracts and service business over to Eastman Kodak Co (CI No 912), and the only hard number available is that the immediate sale affects 2,000 people – just 0.5% of IBM’s total workforce. But analysts guess that the business being sold to Kodak does about $900m a year, and that the similar ones in 17 other countries that are the subject of continuing negotiations between the two do another $400m or so. IBM says that it will not only continue to manufacture copiers – they are made at its Charlotte, North Carolina base – because it can do it efficiently, but will also continue to develop the technology, since it is also used in its printers. But over time it is likely that IBM will cease to manufacture finished copiers and simply sell copier engines OEM.
