Tell me! When will IT analysts stop confusing things for everyone?

Yeah, that's what I said.

Xerox brings to market its Enterprise Print Services (EPS) solution this week and the leading analysts at InfoTrends aggressively freak out.

Pretty much all that's happened with EPS is this: Xerox is demonstrating that it's aware that fewer and fewer workers who need to hit the print button are shackled to a desk in an office. So Xerox did something about it, rolling out support for home and virtual printing, adding print routing features to save money, paper and time, and making it easier to keep more print jobs in-house versus sending them out.

You wouldn't know this listening to the Chicken Littles at InfoTrends, who, upon learning that EPS enables Xerox to assist in managing and negotiating commercial print strategies with third-party shops on behalf of partners, reacted in a shocking fit of animal paranoia.

"This clearly could raise concern to print service providers (PSPs), many of whom are loyal Xerox customers," InfoTrends howled, immediately back-tracking on this dire threat by saying managed print opportunities for everyone remain strong.

Upon hearing that EPS has print-from-smartphone capabilities as part of its virtual environment support, InfoTrends leapt into a four-alarm panic over the proposition that EPS could soon pack more tools than a Hooters at happy hour.

"Should we, therefore, expect a maelstrom of new document solutions that addresses this growing segment, either supporting the users' remotely connected MFPs or mobile devices?"

Calm down boys. Software happens.

And so, it seems, does unwarranted fear.

Hey, who's afraid of a little question like this: How many dollars in service revenue did you make for every dollar of equipment sold this year?

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