The move is apparently the result of negotiations with investor Carl Icahn, who acquired a significant stake in Xerox a year ago and said he would talk to the company about its future.

A large part of the Business Process Outsourcing division would be Affiliated Computer Services, which Xerox purchased for $6.4 billion in 2010.

Xerox reports fourth-quarter 2015 earnings Friday before the market opens.

Icahn disclosed a 7.1 percent stake in the printer and copier maker in November and called its shares “undervalued”.

Xerox (XRX) is separating into two independent, publicly traded companies. Revenue, however, dropped by 8%, to $4.65 billion.

During Friday’s session, Xerox reached an intraday high of $9.87 and an intraday low of $9.83. Operating margin was at 9.2 percent – a 1.2 percent decrease from Q4 2014.

Xerox has been grappling with declining annual revenue for four consecutive years. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.31 earnings per share. Xerox said earlier that it was conducting a broad-based review of structural options for the company’s business portfolio and capital allocation. The Company’s Document Technology segment includes the sale of products and supplies, as well as the associated technical service and financing of those products. The company came to prominence in 1959 with the introduction of the Xerox 914, the first plain paper photocopier. It would divide the firm’s hardware and services sides of the business. He told CNBC that he had “several meetings with [Xerox CEO] Ursula Burns and applaud and respect her for doing what she believes shareholders want”. Its shares have fallen 28 percent over the past year.

“If it works properly, both companies will be able to serve its clients better, have better performance against their industry competitors, and obviously the companies will do well both from a shareholder perspective, employee perspective and customer perspective”, Burns said.

“The reason why it was easy to get to a decision is because we do have two businesses that rotate around two different axes”, Burns said.

“This is absolutely a good thing for the reseller community”, said Steve Jenkins, president of Xerox partner Precision Document Solutions of Carrollton, Texas, likening it to the split previous year of Hewlett-Packard into HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.