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Xerox PARC Celebrates 40th Anniversary

Posted by Soulskill on from the success-that's-hard-to-copy dept.

CWmike writes "For 40 years, the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center has been a place of technological creativity and bold ideas, writes Todd Weiss. The inventions it has spawned, from Ethernet networking to laser printing and the graphical user interface, have led to myriad technologies that allow us to use computers in ways that we take for granted today. When it opened on July 1, 1970, PARC was set up as a division of Xerox Corp. The idea was to invest in PARC as a springboard for developing new technologies and fresh concepts that would lead to future products. 'Conducting research at PARC four decades ago was like magic,' says Dr. Robert S. Bauer, who worked at PARC from 1970 to 2001. 'In an era of political and social upheaval, we came to work every day with a passion to free technology from the grip of the military-industrial complex and bring computation to the people.' Indeed, the company's 'technology first' culture has sometimes brought it under fire. PARC has often been criticized for its past failures to capitalize on some of its greatest inventions, allowing other companies to cash in on its ideas. (Today, PARC has a team working to protect its intellectual property.) Nevertheless, its reputation as a technology innovator is impeccable."

10 of 57 comments (clear)

  1. Its kind of funny that... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...a company made successful by copying, created so much original technology.

    1. Re:Its kind of funny that... by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not as funny as the things they created are only relevant because someone else copied it.

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    2. Re:Its kind of funny that... by oracleguy01 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Well that isn't technically true, at least some of the people left PARC to found companies to make products based on their ideas because XEROX management failed to see the value in the technology they owned. Adobe and 3Com are two such examples.

    3. Re:Its kind of funny that... by thermopile · · Score: 5, Informative
      For a truly *great* read about what PARC was like, I would highly recommend "Dealers of Lightning" by Michael Hiltzik.

      The book goes into some detail about the environment, the management style (both local and at "HQ" back in NY state), and all the great inventions that came out of there. And also of PARC's decline in the mid-to-late 1980's. I really wish I could have been a fly on the wall back in those days, and this book gets pretty close.

      Less than twelve bucks from Amazon and well worth it.

      --

      "Diplomacy is something you do until you find a rock." --Richard Pound

    4. Re:Its kind of funny that... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Informative

      PARC invented the laser printer, and Xerox made enough money from that to cover the entire cost of operating it for as long as it ran. They got Apple shares from showing Steve Jobs around which, by the time they sold them, were worth more than the total cost of operating PARC. They got a bit of money from spin-out companies to commercialise Ethernet and Smalltalk. I'm not sure who thinks that they didn't make money - they were the absolute poster child for R&D return on investment. They might have been able to make more, but it would probably have killed the atmosphere that made PARC so productive.

      PARC now is a pale shadow of Xerox PARC in the '70s. The most interesting thing I've seen from it recently was Aspect Oriented Programming, which was proof that you can make people use something as insane as a computed COME FROM statement if you wrap it in enough buzzwords.

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  2. Why PARC's Fault? by captbob2002 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "PARC has often been criticized for its past failures to capitalize on some of its greatest inventions" How is that PARC's fault? More likely the short-sighted Xerox management that failed to see what they had?

    1. Re:Why PARC's Fault? by Lennie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think it is a great example of what would happen if nothing was patented.

      The mouse/wimp and ethernet and so on all came from there, had they patented it like crazy, they would probably never had much succes.

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      New things are always on the horizon
  3. LambdaMOO by MrEricSir · · Score: 4, Funny

    The mouse, ethernet, OOP... who cares? Isn't LambdaMOO enough of a reason to celebrate PARC?

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    There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
  4. political and social upheaval? by tomhath · · Score: 4, Interesting

    'In an era of political and social upheaval, we came to work every day with a passion to free technology from the grip of the military-industrial complex and bring computation to the people.'

    Much of PARC's success was because the country was in a deep recession in the late 70's and early 80's. All those guys with PhD's who wanted to live quiet lives as university professors were forced to get jobs instead, it allowed PARC to put together quite a brain trust.. But they probably would've done even better if they had stuck to technology instead of trying to solve the world's political and social issues. PARC employees heavily influenced the decline of the Association for Computing Machinery by taking over many of the leadership spots and pushing their social activist agenda.

  5. Re:Big Deal by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Apple did not rip of PARC. Apple paid Xerox a load of shares for a tour of PARC. They commercialised some ideas from PARC and Xerox got money from the shares (a lot of money, in fact). Possibly Xerox could have made more money doing it themselves, but the Alto is a good indication that they didn't really understand how to sell computers.

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