High-end printers could be the next market that IBM Corp hands over to a third party: gossip on the street has IBM ending all manufacture of its own big printers and instead licensing Advanced Function Printing technology to Xerox Corp and buying its requirement for printers back from the Stamford, Connecticut company on an OEM basis; such a move would be consistent with IBM’s departure from other activities where new products are expensive to develop and where it is not a dominant player such as the transfer of its copiers to Eastman Kodak Co.