Perceptive Software Helps Lexmark Break Even in Quarterly Earnings

Revenue for Microsoft Dynamics ISV Perceptive Software continues to grow, helping its parent company, Lexmark International Inc., to tread water amid a shifting mix in its portfolio.

Because of its recent decision to close its inkjet operations, for the three months that ended Sept. 30, Lexmark reported essentialy zero earnings, down from $0.86 in the same quarter in 2011.

However, during the same period, Perceptive took in $41 million in revenue, up 88% from the $23 million that Perceptive reported in the third quarter of 2011.

A lot of this growth stemmed from recent acquisitions Perceptive made to broaden its content management offerings, according to company officials.

These acquisitions, worth more than $200 million in total according to company announcements, date back to the fall of 2011 and continued into the spring of 2012.  In October, Lexmark acquired Dutch company Pallas Athena for $50 million with plans to make it a business unit of Perceptive.

Pallas Athena's products enable a range of business process management (BPM) capabilities, including dynamic case management and customer communications management.

Perceptive announced the acquisition of Luxembourg-based Brainware in early March 2012 for $148 million in cash. Through the acquisition, Perceptive added a new intelligent character recognition tool to its arsenal via Brainware Distiller. Later in March, Lexmark and Perceptive acquired two more properties - ISYS and Nolij.

"We continue to leverage our investment in the Perceptive Software portfolio in combination with our smart multifunction products to reduce the complexities of manual processes and improve productivity for our customers," said Paul Rooke, Lexmark chairman ...