On 4th February 2025, Lexmark announced AI-powered document enhancements, including translation and redaction, to its centralised Lexmark Cloud Services offering. Lexmark has long championed cloud-based print solutions, with its Lexmark Cloud Services (LCS) platform offering a comprehensive suite of services. This commitment to the cloud has resonated with customers, as evidenced by a doubling of LCS cloud enrolments over the past year. This increase includes a significant migration of existing on-premise customers to the public cloud, demonstrating a clear shift in how businesses approach print management.
The three pillars of Lexmark Cloud Services
LCS is an umbrella term for a raft of different Lexmark services. The services that a customer chooses to use are all managed via a single central management portal. LCS is a fully multi-tenanted public cloud platform that can be scaled from small organisations through to large multinationals. This makes it suitable for Lexmark’s channel partners, which can use it to approach general or specific market segments as they see fit.
- Lexmark Cloud Fleet Management (CFM). CFM is the underlying basic platform to LCS. It is, in effect, the engine that powers and enables everything that sits on top of it and provides an on-ramp for customers connecting their Lexmark devices via Cloud Bridge options onto the overall LCS platform. CFM can provide insights across a multi-vendor fleet – but will not provide full support, such as predictive consumables usage, predictive service requirements, and patch or update management. Should a customer only want to have a generalised view of their device fleet, CFM can do this – and Lexmark does not charge for it. For both channel and end-user customers, CFM offers a flexible management environment, for example, allowing devices to be automatically updated during non-critical hours, or, through policies, updated immediately based on security needs.
- Cloud Print Management (CPM). This provides the basic print management tools that any organisation would look for, as well as additional capabilities, such as advanced queue management and pull-printing support. CPM is primarily focused on Lexmark devices. It also has a default fall-back capability, where should there be problems with connectivity to the cloud, users can still print using an ‘offline’ print capability. Lexmark states that it has achieved full parity between its on-premise Lexmark Print Management (LPM) and CPM platforms.
- Cloud Solution Center (CSC). This is a new service that covers digitisation with the capture of scanned documents and managing the workflows of the resulting documents. Optical character recognition (OCR) will be supported on CSC right from the start – but carried out in the cloud, rather than on the user’s PC to provide both improved speed and information security. Translation capabilities will also be included – and cloud-powered through LCS.
Lexmark states that it has over 500,000 devices managed via LCS, through either fleet or print management services. CPM revenues have also increased by 50%.
Maturing IDP capabilities
While Lexmark has previously offered OCR and translation as stand-alone services, these capabilities are now being integrated into LCS. This is complemented by new intelligent document processing (IDP) services, including automated information redaction. The Cloud Solution Center (CSC) platform will eventually extend its capabilities beyond Lexmark devices to encompass other vendors’ hardware.
Lexmark emphasises the pervasive use of AI to maximise CSC’s value proposition. Developed as a cloud-based alternative to the on-premise Lexmark Document Distributor (LDD), CSC is currently evolving into a comprehensive advanced digitisation service. Lexmark has committed to rapid development to meet customer needs for capture, data extraction, application integration, and workflow automation.
Critically, CSC’s focus on captured information means it’s device-agnostic; any document, whether scanned or converted from sources such as email PDFs, can be incorporated into a CSC workflow. Its modular design allows customers to select and pay only for the specific functionalities they require.
Channel opportunity
For channel partners, Cloud Fleet Management (CFM) is a critical tool. It provides visibility into customer print environments, leveraging AI-powered analytics to anticipate potential issues and predict consumable replacement needs. This proactive approach minimises on-site visits, empowering partners to resolve many problems remotely or guide customers through self-service fixes. The benefits are multifaceted: increased partner profitability, reduced customer costs, and enhanced sustainability through a smaller carbon footprint because of fewer unnecessary trips and optimised parts delivery. CFM’s filtering capabilities further streamline operations, enabling both partners and customers to identify trends, such as multiple devices running low on black toner, and consolidate supply orders for more efficient and sustainable deliveries.
Leveraging security
Security is paramount to Lexmark’s cloud strategy. Unlike on-premise systems, which rely on potentially inconsistent over-the-air or manual updates, a unified cloud platform such as LCS empowers customers with centralised control over device security. Updates are deployed seamlessly and securely across all connected devices, minimising vulnerabilities. Furthermore, the cloud network itself benefits from enhanced security measures, and when devices are directly managed through the cloud, a robust and easily managed secure print platform emerges. LCS’s Cloud Fleet Management (CFM) includes features to enforce secure configurations and login policies. For added data security, its Cloud Print Management (CPM) service supports a hybrid storage model, allowing customers to retain print data within their corporate firewall using integrated physical print servers.
Flexible pricing
Pricing for LCS is flexible: most services can be subscription- (per user or per device) or usage-based. However, there does seem to be a degree of complexity within how overall services will be charged, with a mix of a basic per-active-device cost and a charge for the services layered on top of that. This may cause issues for the channel in ensuring that prospects and customers are not confused, and customers will need to ensure that they fully understand the cost model to avoid being surprised when they are invoiced for a period of usage.
Quocirca opinion
Lexmark’s accelerated investment in cloud capabilities is a positive development, and the emphasis on parity between on-premise and cloud functionality is a smart move that should facilitate sales, especially through channel partners. The addition of Cloud Solution Center (CSC) to its portfolio holds potential, but Lexmark needs to act decisively to establish clear differentiation from competitors. AI-powered translation and redaction capabilities further enhance the value proposition for customers, offering significant productivity improvements for traditionally manual tasks.
However, the impending acquisition of Lexmark by Xerox creates uncertainty over the future of Lexmark Cloud Services (LCS). Until Xerox articulates its long-term print management strategy and how LCS will integrate with its existing offerings, recommending LCS as a strategic platform is premature. Channel partners should, therefore, treat LCS as a tactical solution for supporting their existing Lexmark customer base. This approach ensures continuity and uninterrupted service while awaiting clarity from Xerox on its consolidated platform roadmap.
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