Brother combines fax and printer divisions

Peripherals firm Brother has merged its printer and fax divisions to form an image division in order to grow its multifunction business.

Under the restructure, sales staff will be merged and the vendor's printer distributors which do not carry faxes - Ingram Micro, Merisel and Micro Peripherals - will gain access to them. There will be no redundancies as a result of the merger, according to Brother.

David York, former general manager of the printer division, will head the new group. He said: 'This will bring stability to the channel because the lines of communication will be clearer. Before, distributors were getting fed up with being phoned by the different teams. Now they will have one dedicated account manager.

'It makes sense because the fax is becoming more like the printer, using the same consumables and channels.'

The fax and printer businesses combined represent two-thirds of Brother's turnover.

Mike Kelly will remain general manager of the office products division products, where the fax business used to sit.