Xerox has made Jean-Noel Machon president of Xerox European Solutions Group.


He will manage the 3.9bn European set up with 19,000 staff in more than 20 countries.


Machon joined Xerox in Lille in 1976, rising to president of General Market Operations for Europe and North American agents before this appointment. He replaces Pierre Danon who moves to BT Retail as chief executive. Xerox said BT approached Danon.


"BT Retail is three times the size of Xerox in Europe, with $15bn turnover and 65,000 staff," said a source. "He wasnt actively looking for a change, but its a big job and who wouldnt want to be in telecoms at the moment?"


He said Machon and Xerox president Anne Mulcahy aimed to focus on "moving away from analogue to digital business where economies are different, and align financial services, graphic art, industrial and public-sector areas".


Armando Zagalo de Lima has been named chief operating officer, Machons "second in command". He used to handle south European operations.


Xerox is targeting two main growth areas. The first is general markets in colour, ink-jets and digital-network equipment.


The second is industry solutions through its out-sourcing service, Xerox Business Services, and its Xerox Professional Services consultancy operation.


Xerox also confirmed a co-branding agreement for the supply of three Presstek-enabled DI presses, first mentioned at Drupa.


Xerox will market, distribute and service the DocuColor DI series running at up to 400 pages a minute.


The four- and five-colour versions of a B3 sheet-fed press will be marketed as the DocuColor 400 DI-4 and the 400 DI-5. An A3 four-colour sheetfed machine will be named DocuColor 233 DI.


Shipments are due to start in the fourth quarter.


Meanwhile, Xerox used USA's Graph Expo to announce the DocuColor 2000 CSX image processor targeted at professional printers.


It is also targeting entry-level production printers by lopping off nearly 40% of the price of a DocuColor 40 copier/printer.


Story by Jez Abbott