Now that it’s disposed of its Olsy systems and services unit to Wang Laboratories Inc (CI No 3,021), Ing C Olivetti SpA is telling the Italian unions that it no longer looking to sell off further units, particularly the Lexikon printers and office equipment division. Olivetti’s managing director, Roberto Colaninno, met with officials from the Fim-Cisl union on Tuesday, and said that Lexikon was absolutely not for sale, and the Olivetti is in fact developing it according to a Reuters report. It was expected that Olivetti would divest itself of all non-core businesses, leaving it to concentrate on core information technology and telecommunications related business. Lexikon has around half of the European market for ink-jet printers. Last year, Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore was predicting that Olivetti would find an international partner for Lexikon eary in 1998. Xerox Corp was mentioned as a possible candidate (CI No 3,315).
