Toshiba’s cloud acquisition: Strategic investment rather than market changer
November 13, 2025
Channel, Managed Print Services, Cloud print, Cloud, Article
Toshiba’s acquisition and rebranding of UK-based Youmebee Ltd (now Coreza), the company that offers directprint.io (to be rebranded as Coreza Print), marks a strategic move in the fragmented cloud print management market. While the deal strengthens Toshiba’s North American portfolio, questions remain about its global strategies and whether Coreza will remain a niche player, particularly within Google Workspace environments, or emerge as a broader industry disruptor.
The push for cloud-first print architecture
The underlying pressure driving change is the enterprise shift to cloud-first IT architectures. For print, this has created a fragmented environment, with organisations juggling legacy on-premise infrastructure, hybrid deployments, and emerging cloud-native platforms. This complexity is driving a demand for greater simplicity and integration. Today, the market is characterised by print management vendors including MyQ, PaperCut, Pharos, Tungsten Automation, Vasion, and Y Soft, which offer vendor-agnostic, feature-rich solutions for both cloud and on-premise environments. In addition, Microsoft continues to invest in expanding its Universal Print platform, which is gaining traction as a core component of enterprise print strategies, offering a native, serverless cloud print solution that simplifies management within Windows/Azure environments.
The acquisition
Toshiba America Business Solutions’ recent acquisition of directprint.io, now rebranded as Coreza Print, signals a strategic move to strengthen its cloud print capabilities. Under the agreement, Coreza will continue to operate as a stand-alone subsidiary, focusing on developing ‘cloud-first, AI-driven print, document, and workflow solutions’, as Coreza positions Coreza Print.
Coreza Print already powers Toshiba America Business Solutions’ Elevate Sky Print Management, a serverless solution designed to reduce IT overhead and streamline print workflows. Ownership allows Toshiba to secure the technology and invest directly in its innovation roadmap, ensuring the solution evolves precisely as required to support customers’ evolving cloud strategies and long-term shift toward infrastructure-light, scalable print environments.
Toshiba expects the acquisition to strengthen its Elevate Sky Print Management platform and expand its capabilities in supporting organisations with mixed fleets. The rebranded Coreza Print platform currently supports all major printer brands, a cloud-native architecture, integration with major identity providers and real-time analytics for tracking usage costs, and sustainability performance. Separate from the US-centered ‘Elevate Sky’ brand, Toshiba will make the solution available globally to all subsidiaries to complement existing regional offers.
Notably, Coreza Print has built a strong presence in Google Workspace environments, where its lightweight, cloud-native architecture has resonated with education and SMB sectors. As well as integration with Google Workspace and Google ChromeOS, it integrates with Microsoft Azure Active Directory for user management.
Coreza is also positioning itself as a strong means of dealing with Microsoft’s upcoming move to Windows Protected Print, in which the Windows print stack will be deprecated. As Coreza Print depends on its own cloud-based print stack, Coreza states that it will not be impacted by Microsoft’s move.
Speaking to Quocirca, Coreza President David Jenkins underlined his ambitions following the deal, pointing to the marketing reach and technical power that Toshiba America brings to the table. Coreza aims to build on the Coreza Print offering and expand into other vertically tailored, problem-solving SaaS workplace solutions, including AI and automation features.
Possible issues
Currently, directprint.io/Coreza is used by other print vendors, such as Sharp, which previously announced a strategic partnership with Youmebee. Coreza is confident these relationships will remain in place. However, because of its operating as an independent company, a key area for Toshiba and Coreza will be to persuade such partners to stick with the solution to make it economically scalable under Toshiba’s ownership. Toshiba, while gaining the capability to have strategic input into Coriza’s direction, must ensure that Coreza Print remains equally functional across all print devices. It must also be open to constructive criticism and ideas from OEMs and channel members that are Coreza partners.
Addressing this topic, David Jenkins noted that Coreza remains a stand-alone entity and pointed to the vendor-neutral history of directprint, which is based on providing base-level support for all print manufacturers and building embedded applications for a number of OEM partners. The company aims to continue fostering relationships of this type. Bill Melo, Toshiba America Business Solutions Vice-President, Marketing and Strategic Business Development, supported this position. He noted that Toshiba America has a long history of marketing solutions owned by partners and competitors and underlined the value of maintaining the features of a vendor-agnostic solution in a North American market where the majority of MPS fleets are multivendor.
Although Coreza is UK based, the deal seems to be strongly North America focused. For example, Toshiba UK does not mention the deal on its website. Rolling Coreza Print out across the complex overall Toshiba print environment may not be simple. Again, to ensure scalability, Toshiba must ensure that Coreza Print becomes the go-to platform across all global regions.
Quocirca opinion
Coreza presents itself as a multivendor, independent solution, which is important in a market wary of vendor lock-in. However, its ability to scale and compete with larger, more established players will depend on how convincingly it can deliver neutrality, enterprise-grade performance, and broad compatibility.
While this positions Toshiba more competitively in North America, questions remain about its global strategy. In Europe, Toshiba continues to support alternative solutions, raising uncertainty about whether Coreza Print will be adopted as a unified platform across regions or remain a regional offering.
Although Coreza’s multivendor positioning is a strong focus, its new ownership raises questions for other OEMs that have historically partnered with Youmebee. With the platform now under the control of a direct competitor, these vendors may explore alternative partnerships to safeguard neutrality and strategic independence.
Whether this move benefits Toshiba alone or signals a broader shift for the industry will depend on execution. If Coreza can maintain its multivendor stance, expand beyond its Google-centric base, and demonstrate appreciable enhanced value when paired with broader cloud ecosystems such as Universal Print, it could help accelerate cloud adoption across the print sector. Otherwise, its impact may be limited to Toshiba’s direct footprint and niche deployments.
This move does potentially reflect a broader industry trend: OEMs are increasingly recognising the need to own and accelerate cloud innovation in order to remain competitive as the market consolidates. Whether others will follow Toshiba’s lead remains to be seen, but the pressure to simplify infrastructure, control platform development, and differentiate through cloud-native capabilities is mounting across the sector.
