Lexmark’s acquisition of Readsoft is part of a continued effort at Lexmark to balance mature and stable printer HW revenues with faster  growing software and services businesses.  This acquisition is one of many in the last two years, and is consistent with consolidation in the mature capture and content market.  And it works for me.

Readsoft provides more software depth in Europe then Lexmark has, and is stronger than Lexmark in financial process automation (purchase –to-pay and order-to cash although mostly the former) with strong integration with SAP and other ERP vendors. Perceptive Software, the core technology within  Lexmark’s software division, is  more content then transaction oriented, a strength that  Readsoft adds.  

There is also synergy across analytics.  For example, Brainware, acquired by Lexmark, is very strong in analytics for forms processing – one of these being invoices.  This should add smarts to ReadSofts front end. 

As always, success is determined by how integration talks place over time and whether an integrated platform can emerge with minimal customer disruption.  It would be good to see acquisiions in the services area to more quickly balance revenue with the tradition business.