Earlier this week, HP got a little boost from a Merrill Lynch (nyse: MER - news - people ) analyst who in a report said that HP's latest monochrome laser printers were priced less than Lexmark's, a fact that it says will help HP maintain its dominant market share in that segment.
Lexmark's marketing teams listened and their in-house engineers (Lexmark manufactures its own products) designed a low-heat printer especially for retail pharmacies.
Lexmark's first problem, Mann recalls, was that most printers were sold through resellers and due to HP's dominance, most resellers weren't too interested in taking a flier on Lexmark.