Xerox and Zapways Ink Internet Deal

In a deal that brings together a year-old dot-com company with an old-line industry giant, Xerox Corporation has chosen Irvine, Calif.-based Zapways.com to develop, manage, and host its on-line print exchange for facilitating and managing distributed printing over the Internet.

As part of the agreement between the two companies, Zapways.com will serve as the provider and developer of back-end technology for Xerox's new xeroxgraphx.com. "Xerox recognizes the importance of utilizing the Web as part of this aggressive graphic arts initiative, especially in order to serve this industry effectively on a global scale," says Rick Welch, general manager of eBusiness for Xerox.

Zapways.com's Web site offers three business functions in one central location: on-line printing/binding, shipping, and file storage. The site's ZapPrint, ZapShip, and ZapDrive features cater to small-office/home-office and consumer users, allowing them to have either color or black-and-white documents printed to custom specifications, bound, and shipped via overnight delivery services like FedEx.

Documents can also be stored on line through ZapDrive, says the company.