Xerox president and chief operating officer Anne Mulcahy has stepped up to become chief executive.


She replaces Paul Allaire, who will continue as chairman until his retirement at the end of the year.


Xeroxs share price rose by 5.8% after the announcement last week good news for the company, which recently posted its fourth consecutive quarterly losses.
Mulcahy, who has been with Xerox for 25 years, was described as a proven and dynamic leader by Allaire.


She has been credited with helping to turn around the companys flagging operations, and Xeroxs decision to close its small home and office business (SoHo) was said to have been driven by her.
The closure should lead to savings of 70m ($100m) and add about 7p per share to second-half earnings.


Xerox has also launched two new cut-sheet printers targeted at small printers who want to produce on-demand and personalised jobs.


The DocuTech 2000 Series 75 engineered for the on-demand market and DocuPrint 75 for merging variable data can both print 75 pages per minute at 600dpi.
The products are available immediately in the US, with Europe following later this year.


Story by Fay Schopen