Intermec renews focus on printers

The former leader in the thermal printing market now aims to reclaim that position.

By Corinne Kator, Associate Editor -- Modern Materials Handling, 2/7/2008

Intermec, the second largest manufacturer in the automatic data capture (ADC) market, is attempting to reassert itself in label printing market.

“Printers are our heritage,” says Tom Roth of Intermec’s printer and media division. “But we kind of lost our way in the mid 90s.”

Intermec used to be the country’s largest provider of thermal printers, Roth says, and the company is now working to gain back its lost market share.

As the only company in the ADC business that makes both printers and scanners, Intermec should have an advantage in the market, says Roth, because the company can make printing and scanning products that work better together.

One sign of the company’s renewed focus on printers is a plan to release at least five new printers in the next two years, including several mobile printers.

The first of these printers is the PB50. Roth told attendees of Intermec’s recent customer conference (known as i-comm) that the 4-inch direct thermal printer is rugged, reliable and twice as fast as competing printers.

The PB50 is available now. Intermec plans to release a 2-inch and a 3-inch mobile printer in 2009.

According to Kevin Permenter, an industry analyst at Venture Development Corp., mobile printing is the fastest growing segment of the U.S. printer market. He foresees the current wave of growth in mobile printing continuing for quite some time, he says, though the wave itself may have already crested last year.

Intermec’s enthusiasm for the printer market apparently comes from CEO Patrick Byrne, who joined the company in July 2007. Soon after taking the helm, Byrne created a new business unit and hired a new vice president to focus specifically on the company’s printer business.