Xerox to Acquire Global Imaging Systems

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

April 2, 2007, 1:08 PM

Xerox continued its expansion Monday, announcing it had agreed to a $1.46 billion deal to acquire Global Imaging Systems, a company that sells office-imaging products and services.

The acquisition is its biggest in the past year. In July of last year, Xerox acquired Amici, a company that provides services for electronic discovery in court cases, and then picked up XMPie, a multimedia marketing campaign software maker in November.

When the merger completes, Global will operate as a Xerox subsidiary, and will retain its management structure as well as employees. It will also obviously begin selling Xerox products and services, something it has not done prior to the acquisition.

It appears that Global will continue to offer competitors products following the deal from public statements from both companies. It currently has some 200,000 customers with annual sales over $1 Billion USD.

"Joining forces with Global Imaging Systems gives Xerox access to their extensive customer base and adds more than 1,400 'feet on the street' selling Xerox systems," Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy said.

Mulcahy said earlier it was interested in spending some of its $1.5 billion in cash reserves to make acquisitions that would bolster its services business. The acquisition of Global is expected to close in May.