The following appears on democratandchronicle.com

The past couple years have been rough ones for Xerox Corp.’s technology business, with sales of equipment on a long slide.

But the past couple months have brought a few bits of good news, as Xerox saw its largest-ever order for high-speed color presses. And Xerox’s most-recent fiscal quarter saw the first growth in equipment sales since 2011.

However, none of that was enough to make up for yet another down quarter in Xerox’s technology side of the business. The growth in Xerox revenues during the quarter were all driven by business services. And Xerox, which has been cutting its headcount, plans to trim even more.

The Connecticut-based business services and printing company announced its latest quarterly financial results Thursday. For the three months ending June 30, the company took in $5.4 billion, up about 1 percent from the same three months in 2012.

Services revenues were up 5 percent from a year ago. Its technology business, including equipment sales and supplies, was down 5 percent at the same time. Services now account for 55 cents of every dollar Xerox takes in.

That 5 percent decline in the technology business was an improvement over the 9 percent decline in the first quarter, with increased equipment sales helping, Chief Financial Officer Kathryn Mikells told Wall Street analysts Thursday. “We feel good about the improving trends in this business,” she said.

“We’re effectively managing the (technology) business as a profitable, cash generating operation,” CEO Ursula M. Burns said.

After expenses, Xerox had profits of $271 million or 22 cents per share, down from $309 million or 23 cents per share a year ago.

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