In the 1970s Xerox Corporation assembled a
group of talented researchers to investigate new
technologies. The new group was located in the
newly opened Palo Alto Research Center (PARC),
well away from the corporate headquarters in
Connecticut.
In addition to developing Ethernet, the brilliant
folks at the PARC invented the technology for
what eventually became the personal computer
(PC), the graphical user interface (GUI), laser printing,
and very-large-scale integration (VLSI).
Inexplicably, Xerox Corporation failed to recognize
the brilliance (and commercial viability) of many of
these homegrown innovations and let them walk
out the door.
To give you an idea of what this cost Xerox in
terms of opportunity, the worldwide budget for
Ethernet equipment was more than $7 billion in
2006 and was expected to grow to more than $10
billion by 2009. Just imagine if a single company
owned the assets of Apple, Intel, Cisco, HP, and
Microsoft. There almost was such a company. Its
name is Xerox.
At-a-Glance: Ethernet