The head of office-machine maker Canon said Tuesday his company will not supply printers to PC maker Dell Computer, which aims to enter the printer business but may need a manufacturing partner to do so.
"It's my understanding that Dell has been looking for someone to do ink-jet printers for them,'' Canon President Fujio Mitarai said. "At the very least, we will not be doing this."
Dell hopes to get into the printer business, probably this year, although many analysts believe it would not make economic sense for the company to make the complex products on its own.Speculation has heightened over which printer maker it might turn to as a supplier, with U.S.-based Lexmark International considered a likely candidate.
Japan's Canon, the world's third-largest ink-jet printer maker, aims to expand its share of that market and hopes to become the global leader by 2005.
But Mitarai showed no interest in the low-profit business he expected Dell to be targeting."Their prices are cheap," he said. "We will not do low-end products in printers."
News source: Cnet
