Begbies Traynor was appointed on 29 January after the business was unable to meet its liabilities. Administrator Natalie Mayfield told printweek.com that it would not be sold as a going concern. "Everything's frozen. We've taken over and will be looking to sell of assets to pay the creditors."

Technologic Group managing director Tony Lynch told printweek.com that Xerox had repeatedly told customers that Technologic LSI was not allowed to sell Xerox software, meaning customers would be liable to pay Xerox additional licensing and diagnostics fees of around £25,000-30,000, despite having already paid Technologic.

"Xerox couldn't actually do that, but to fight it was difficult," said Lynch. "We had taken them to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) with issues like this in the past, but the complaints were shelved."

Lynch admitted it was also difficult to "aggressively compete" with Xerox, which "probably has the best field engineering team anywhere in Europe or the US", and said he has had to cancel around 30 maintenance contracts.

In response to the administration, Xerox said: "It is a tough market at the moment and we are sorry to hear that Technologic has gone into administration.

"We have been working with Technologic for some time to support customers who have Xerox products, who remain a key priority for us."

According to Lynch, Technologic LSI has "shut completely" and the remaining four staff at Technologic Group will continue to operate under a new business model as an "independent supplier of production printers in the UK".

Paul Johnstone, now director of operations at RR Donnelley, had bought equipment through Technologic in past roles at Astron and Edotech.

Johnstone told printweek.com that Xerox's warranty meant "it wouldn't let us get maintenance from other providers" and added that he had had "several meetings with Xerox's legal department" over issues of maintenance and software licensing.

"Xerox is a very good supplier. No one has ever had any doubts about Xerox," he said. "It's just a shame because companies like Technologic kept Xerox on its toes."

Technologic complained to the OFT in 2001 over suspected infringement of the Competition Act 1998. At the time, Lynch said: "Since 1996, Technologic has operated a maintenance division maintaining high-speed Xerox printers and in that time we feel Xerox has done everything it can to stop us fairly competing."