Xerox Products
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Xerox Xerox was founded in 1906 in Rochester, New York as "The Haloid Company",[2] which originally manufactured photographic paper and equipment. The company subsequently changed its name to "Haloid Xerox" in 1958 and then simply "Xerox" in 1961.[3] The company came to prominence in 1959 with the introduction of the Xerox 914, the first plain paper photocopier using the process of xerography developed by Chester Carlson.[4] The 914 was so popular that by the end of 1961, Xerox had almost $60 million in revenue. By 1965, revenues leaped to over $500 million. Before releasing the 914, Xerox had also introduced the first xerographic printer, the "Copyflo" in 1955. The company expanded substantially throughout the 1960s, making millionaires of some long-suffering investors who had nursed the company through the slow research and development phase of the product. In 1960, the "Wilson Center for Research and Technology" was opened in Webster, New York, a research facility for xerography. Then in 1961, the company changed its name to "Xerox Corporation". Xerox common stock (XRX) was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1961 and on the Chicago Stock Exchange in 1990. In 1963, Xerox introduced the Xerox 813, the first desktop plain-paper copier, bringing Carlson's vision of a copier that could fit on anyone's office desk into a reality. Ten years later in 1973, a color copier followed. In 1969, Xerox acquired Scientific Data Systems [SDS], and produced the Sigma line of 32-bit mainframe computers in the 1960s and 1970s. The laser printer was invented in 1969 by Xerox researcher Gary Starkweather by modifying a Xerox copier. This development resulted in the first commercially available laser printer, the Xerox 9700, being launched in 1977. Laser printing eventually became a multi billion dollar business for Xerox. Archie McCardell was named president of the company in 1971.[5] During his tenure, Xerox introduced its first color copier.[6] During McCardell's reign at Xerox, the company announced record revenues, earnings and profits in 1973, 1974, and 1975.[7] John Carrol became a backer, later spreading the company throughout North America. Following these years of record profits, in 1975 Xerox resolved an anti-trust suit with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which at the time was under the direction of Frederic M. Scherer. The Xerox consent decree resulted in the forced licensing of the company’s entire patent portfolio, mainly to Japanese competitors. This action marked the start of an activist approach to managing competition by the FTC and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). It resulted in the forced licensing of tens of thousands of patent from some of America's leading companies, including IBM, AT&T, DuPont, Bausch & Lomb, and Eastman Kodak. Within four years of the consent decree, Xerox's share of the U.S. copier market dropped from nearly 100% to less than 14%. Between 1950 and 1980 Japanese companies consummated more than 35,000 foreign licensing agreements, mostly with U.S. companies, for free or low-cost licenses made possible by the FTC and DOJ. In 1970, under company president Charles Peter McColough, Xerox opened the Xerox PARC (Xerox Palo Alto Research Center) research facility. The facility developed many modern computing technologies such as the mouse and the graphical user interface (GUI). From these inventions, Xerox PARC created the Xerox Alto in 1973, a small minicomputer similar to a modern workstation or personal computer. This machine can be considered the first true personal computer, given its versatile combination of a cathode-ray-type screen, mouse-type pointing device, and a QWERTY-type alphanumeric keyboard. But the Alto was never commercially sold, as Xerox itself could not see the sales potential of it. In 1979, several Apple Computer employees, including Steve Jobs, visited Xerox PARC, interested in seeing their developments. Jobs and the others saw the commercial potential of the GUI and mouse, and redirected development of the Apple Lisa to incorporate these technologies. In 1980, Steven Jobs invited several key PARC's researchers to join his company in order that they would be able to fully develop and implement their ideas. The Xerox Alto workstation was developed at Xerox PARC Xerox later released a similar system to the Alto, the Xerox Star in 1981 as a workstation. It was the first commercial system to incorporate various technologies that today have become commonplace in personal computers, including a bit-mapped display, a window-based GUI, mouse, Ethernet networking, file servers, print servers and e-mail. The Xerox Star, despite its technological breakthroughs, did not sell well due to its high price, costing $16,000 per unit. A typical Xerox Star-based office would have cost $100,000. In the mid 1980s, Apple considered buying Xerox; however, a deal was never reached. Apple instead bought rights to the Alto GUI and adapted it into to a more affordable personal computer, aimed towards the business and education markets. The Apple Macintosh was released in 1984, and was the first personal computer to popularize the GUI and mouse amongst the public. The company was revived in the 1980s and 1990s, through improvement in quality design and realignment of its product line. Development of digital photocopiers in the 1990s and a revamp of the entire product range—essentially high-end laser printers with attached scanners which were able to be attached to computer networks—again gave Xerox a technical lead over its competitors. Xerox worked to turn its product into a service, providing a complete "document service" to companies including supply, maintenance, configuration, and user support. To reinforce this image, the company introduced a corporate signature, "The Document Company" above its main logo and introduced a red "digital X". The "digital X" symbolized the transition of documents between the paper and digital worlds. In 2000, Xerox acquired Tektronix color printing and imaging division in Wilsonville, Oregon, for US$925 million. This led to the current Xerox Phaser line of products as well as Xerox solid ink printing technology. In September 2004, Xerox celebrated the 45th anniversary of the Xerox 914. More than 200,000 units were made around the world between 1959 and 1976, the year production of the 914 was stopped. Today, the 914 is part of American history as an artifact in the Smithsonian Institution. Xerox's turnaround was largely led by Anne M. Mulcahy, who was appointed president in May 2000, CEO in August 2001 and chairman in January 2002.[8] Mulcahy launched an aggressive turnaround plan that returned Xerox to full-year profitability by the end of 2002, along with decreasing debt, increasing cash, and continuing to invest in research and development. In November, 2006 Xerox completed the Acquisition of XMPie Press Release In October 2008, Xerox Canada Ltd. was named one of Greater Toronto's Top Employers by Mediacorp Canada Inc., which was announced by the Toronto Star newspaper.[9] On May 21, 2009 it was announced that Ursula Burns would succeed Anne Mulcahy as CEO of Xerox as of July 1st, 2009 and hence would become the first African American to head a company the size of Xerox. |
