Late last month, Xerox and Media Sciences signed a settlement agreement. Image source: Photos.com.
Last fall, news broke that Media Sciences International sold its color toner cartridge business to Katun (see “Katun Buys Media Sciences: Is It a Good Fit?”). Now, it seems that Media Sciences is exiting the compatible Xerox ink stick business, following a settlement agreement that ends the long-running litigation between the two firms.
The terms of the settlement agreement seem to leave Media Sciences in a similar position as the protagonist in Edward Everett Hale’s “Man Without a Country.” While the main character in that short story was sentenced to live as a prisoner at sea without ever setting foot in his homeland again, Media Sciences is now similarly adrift, a non-OEM supplies vendors without a line of non-OEM supplies. Having sold its color toner cartridge business to Katun, Media Sciences can now no longer manufacture solid ink sticks for Xerox machines, the very products that gave it its start in the business, and it is turning over its solid ink business for industrial applications to Xerox.
It is an interesting fact that The Danwood Group, who were in 2009, appointed as a nationwide authorized reseller and service provider of Xerox products are supplying MediaSciences solid ink in fulfillment of Xerox PagePack contracts.