Lexmark's Curlander Offers Memjet Comments

Lexmark's conference call following their earnings announcement included an interesting exchange regarding the Silverbrook Memjet announcement. The question (actually part two of a question) came from Bill Hand of Bear Stearns and was answered by Lexmark (NYSE LXK) CEO Paul Curlander.

Bill Hand - Bear Stearns
Just to follow-up, any thoughts on MemJet?

Paul Curlander
Well, MemJet, there's not a lot I can say about that. I mean the Silverbrook technology has been around for a long time. I think clearly here recently they've said some things that look like they’re a little different from some of the things that we've seen from them historically.

I would tell you that we certainly go out and look at everything that's in the market to understand what it is, but we never talk very much about what we think after we take a look at it. I really don't see much impact to Lexmark from MemJet, really kind of for two reasons. One is they have not commercialized the technology and that's a nontrivial thing, but that may just be a timing thing.

Who knows when they might get that done. Secondly, I have a hard time believing from what we've seen that this is going to compete in a price range where Lexmark competes today. It just looks like higher end stuff from what it is that we do in the market. So this is why it's not very high on our list of potential impacts to us in the marketplace.

Thanks to the Wall Street community for prompting some comments from the industry incumbents, just like they did with HP's Vyomesh Joshi in their most recent webcast. And thanks SeekingAlpha for posting the transcript.