Tales of Innovation I: Xerox

As part of a business case analysis on Competitive Strategy I had the opportunity to read “Fumbling the Future”, the story of Xerox (NYSE:XRX) Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and how a team of R&D directed by Alan Kay invented the first personal computer known, including the laser printer, mouse, Ethernet and the “what you see is what you get” windows-like environment. ALTO was released in 1979 with a price tag of $32,000. Later in 1980, a more advanced computer named Star was created but without commercial success. Steve Jobs from Apple Computer took these ideas and created LISA the Macintosh predecessor with a price of $9,995; the rest is history. Nowadays, with a $400 million effort Xerox is unveiling new document technologies based on more than 300 patents. Will Xerox repeat the story?