Toronto-based Moore Corp. Ltd. bought the assets for an undisclosed amount at the beginning of the new year.

The deal includes almost 200 employees across Canada, physical assets and real estate in Montreal, Mississauga, Ont., Toronto and Edmonton.

Nathalie Le Prohon, client operations executive for IBM Global Services, says the company still wants to do end-to-end outsourcing services, but was looking for a first-rate partner to take over the printing aspect.

"(We) wanted to find a best-of-breed print and mail service provider -- somebody to whom these were core services -- that would be making the required investments to continue to be in the future a best-of-breed service provider," she says.

"This business demands very specific skills and investments and automation and processes, which are really not at the core of where IBM is investing itself. But we do continue to need to offer these services so our clients have end-to-end capabilities from IBM."

Le Prohon says that while IBM is getting out of the document management services business, it is not abandoning it entirely. The two companies have entered into a marketing agreement and Moore is the preferred partner for all print services in Canada.