xerox parc, essay

Innovation, Inventionand Missed Opportunity

IXDS5503: Media History and TheoryProfessor: Jason Occhipinti

April 13, 2015

By: Venus M. Popplewell

With a mission to be known as more than a supplier of office copiers, Xerox Cor-poration created the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) in 1970. Their modestgoal was to “create the office of the future.” Xerox assembled a “brain trust of en-gineering geniuses” (Hiltzick, 2009, p. 451) that would create several monumen-tal innovations including the first personal computer, the laser printer, the firsthandheld “mouse” inputting device, the graphical user interface (GUI) and theEthernet (based on ARPAnet, a predecessor of the Internet). But Xerox wrestledwith the problem of how to manage these technologies that did not fit within itsbusiness model. Xerox failed to commercially exploit the cutting-edge ideas deliv-ered by PARC. But, their unparalleled run of invention and innovation would fun-damentally alter the course of computing and define how we use computerstoday.

In 1959, Xerox introduced its office copier and in less than a decade became thefirst company to reach a billion dollars in sales based on the merits of a newtechnology (Smith, 1999).1 Led by the management team of CEO, Peter Mc-Colough and President, Joe Wilson, Xerox successfully commercialized xero-graphic technology and held an unprecedented monopoly on the market. Buttechnological companies, like IBM, brought fierce competition to the industry ofoffice products and “competition between the two giants was inevitable” (Smith,1999).2 To protect Xerox’s “rocket-like rise from turning into a Roman candle”(Smith, 1999).3 Xerox established the Palo Alto Research Center and turnedmore confidently to the task of diversification.

Hiring the BestJack Goldman, head of research at Xerox, recommended to Peter McColoughthat the company set up a new digital technology research center (Smith, 1999).4

Goldman understood the copier business might become vulnerable to computersif Xerox failed to pursue long-range digital research. Of IBM, Smith (1999)5

stated, “The [IBM] machines were owned by one of every six households, andtheir absence in an office was far more remarkable than their presence.”

Goldman recruited a long-standing acquaintance and like-minded physicistnamed George Pake to set up and manage the proposed Xerox research center.Xerox had a tradition of supporting research, and McColough seemed to under-stand it very well. Pake described the research climate, “…I told McColough andGoldman that it would take between five and ten years to get any results, neitherone of them blanched at all. McColough just really seemed to understand thatyou don’t get quick payoffs from research” (Smith, 1999).6

Also tapped by Goldman to lead and recruit for PARC was former director of theAdvanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), Bob Taylor. According to Rao

Innovation, Inventionand Missed Opportunity IXDS5503: Media History and Theory • Popplewell

PARC's 200,000-square-foot facility in PaloAlto, Calif. is carved into the surrounding landscape. Every floor has outdoor patios.Cutline and photo credit: Computerworld.com

The late George E. Pake, founding directorof Xerox PARC, was charged with creatingthe office of the future.Cutline and photo credit: Computerworld.com

Bob Taylor, former director of ARPA andXerox PARC manager/recruiter, ca. 1970. Photo credit: computerhistory.org

(2010) Taylor had a gift for finding and cultivating talented researchers in thecomputer science field. Smith (1999)7 documented a former lab member at PARCstating, “We hired people with fire in their eyes,” while another one noted, “Thepeople here all have track records and are used to dealing with lightning in bothhands.”

ARPA allowed Taylor to build one of the most talented networks of computer sci-entists and researchers in the world. This is where he met Alan Kay. Kay, a color-ful computer scientist, envisioned a computer interface that was so simple andintuitive that a child could use it with little instruction. He described his idea in hisdoctoral thesis at the University of Utah titled “The Reactive Engine” to give nodtoward Charles Babbage’s “Analytical Engine.” Taylor admired Kay’s unconven-tional thinking and asked him to join PARC’s team.

In addition to Kay, Taylor set his sights on many other stars in the ARPA network.“Taylor made two key hires for PARC. First, in November he hired the engineersof the failing Berkeley Computer Company, including Butler Lampson, ChuckThacker, and Peter Deutsch. Second, Taylor raided Doug Engelbart lab at [Stan-ford Research Institute] Augmentation Research Center, where there was no de-sire to make a product or prototype, but just to search for knowledge. Bill English,a brilliant hardware engineer [and co-inventor of the first mouse], left for PARCand [eventually], other Engelbart proteges followed (Rao, 2010).

“In Lampson, Thacker, Kay, the group from Engelbart’s lab, and others, PARChad attracted more highly qualified talent in a year than most new research or-ganizations assemble in three years. The national computer science communitystarted to take note – something unusual was happening in Palo Alto. And Taylorknew that such impressions promised him even greater access to the best com-puter talent” (Smith, 1999).8

Inventing the FuturePARC opened on July 1, 1970. The idea for Xerox was to invest in PARC as aspringboard for developing new technologies and fresh concepts that would leadto future products (Weiss, 2010). “The PARC researchers were tinkerers andhackers. Generally, the office had a feeling of collegiality and a grad school envi-ronment” (Rao, 2010). Hackers were nerdy and smart but had no interest in con-ventional goals. Weekly meetings were set in conference rooms decorated withlounge sofas, beanbag chairs and floor-to-ceiling whiteboards. The hippiecounter-culture that was shaping the management style of Silicon Valley wasechoed within the walls of Xerox PARC.

Euchner (2012) recounted this statement by John Seely Brown, former chief sci-

IXDS5503: Media History and Theory • Popplewell

Engineers at PARC, ca. 1972. Photo credit: computerhistory.org

Xerox PARC Computer Science Laboratoryclass, ca. 1971. Bob Taylor, second from right,would hold classes with laboratory students in"beanbag" chairs.Cutline and Photo credit: computerhistory.org

Xerox PARC engineer and computer scientist, Alan Kay, ca. 1981 Photo credit: computerhistory.com

Innovation, Inventionand Missed Opportunity

entist of Xerox Corporation and director of PARC, “In the early '70s, we were atan amazing moment in which the digital world was being born. At PARC, we weregiven the freedom to invent what we wanted and build whatever we needed inorder to make possible whatever we dreamed. We had a simple mantra: "Buildwhat you need; use what you build." This gave us a tremendous grounding formany of the things that we invented” (p. 18).

The First Laser PrinterIn early 1971, Gary Starkweather transferred from Xerox’s other research lab inRochester, New York to PARC. He brought with him the concept of the laserprinter. Starkweather conceived a technology where the laser “painted” an imageonto a xerographic drum with greater speed and precision than ordinary whitelight. He had modulated a laser to create a bit-mapped electronic image (Rao,2010). The commercial project was approved and killed three times by Xerox ex-ecutives. The Xerox 9700 finally hit the market in 1978 and along with its prede-cessors, would generate billions in sales for Xerox (Rao, 2010).

The Xerox Alto and SmalltalkThe scientists at Xerox PARC designed, built and used a complete system ofhardware and software that fundamentally defined what a networked computercan do today. The breakthrough Xerox Alto was developed in 1973 but can betraced back, in theory, to Alan Kay’s doctoral thesis. In the spring of 1972, Kaypresented Xerox management group with an interactive, personal computing de-vice concept he called the Dynabook. According to Smith (1999)9 Kay describedthe Dynabook as a “dynamic media for creative thought” and it bore no resem-blance to what most people in 1972 considered a computer. Kay went on to ex-plain his vision by saying:

“Imagine having your own self-contained knowledge manipulator in a portablepackage the size and shape of an ordinary notebook. Suppose it had enoughpower to outrace your senses of sight and hearing, enough capacity to store forlater retrieval thousands of page-equivalents or reference materials, poems, let-ters, recipes, records, drawings, animations, musical scores, waveforms, dy-namic simulations, and anything else you would like to remember and change”(Smith, 1999).10

Dynabook would include Smalltalk, a computer programming language devel-oped by Kay that could be used intuitively by computer non-experts and more im-portantly to Kay, by children. Smalltalk was not yet available for Dynabook, butwould become an important interaction feature for the future Xerox Alto by creat-ing the graphical user interface. “Smalltalk was the first true object-oriented

Conceived two years before PARC existed,the Dynabook was researcher Alan Kay's concept for future mobile personal comput-ing. Much of the thinking that went into theDynabook showed up later in the Xerox Alto,in Smalltalk and in PARC's "ubiquitous computing" vision.Cutline and Photo credit: computerworld.com

The Xerox 9700, the first laser printer usingtechnology invented by Starkweather.Photo credit: digibarn.com

The vision of Alan Kay realized; childrenusing the Xerox Alto. Photo credit: Quora.com


computer programming language and it remains popular with PC programmerstoday” (Dennis, n.d.).

Kay failed to win PARC’s management support for the Dynabook but his radicalideas encouraged colleagues Butler Lampson and Chuck Thacker to include himin their pursuit of what Lampson called “personal computing” (Smith, 1999).11 Theresult was the Xerox Alto. The inputting innovations pioneered by these men andits early software programs are still considered, in part, the most influential inven-tions of modern day personal computing.

The revolutionary inputting and hardware features for the Alto are as follows: 14

• Ethernet networking• Graphical User Interface (GUI), • Icons• Bitmapping• Scalable type• A three-button mouse• Removable cartridge hard drive• 64-key keyboard with a five-finger key set

The Alto software innovations included: 14

• Many programming languages including Smalltalk and Mesa (later influencing Modela)• Bravo and Gypsy – the first What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) word processors• Laurel (later Hardy) – Network email clients• FTP and chat utilities – Games including Chess, Pinball, Othello and others• Sil – vector graphics editor• Officetalk – forms/processing system

Rao (2010) asserts the Alto was revolutionary because it was a “personal work-station for one, not a room-sized, time-sharing computer for many, meant to siton a single desktop.” It is credited as being the first “personal computer” (PC) in aworld of mainframes. The Alto combined for the first time, the interactive and “on-line” elements we now take for granted in a desktop computer or tablet.

Missed Opportunities“Highlighting the advances in computer technology being made at Xerox’s PaloAlto Research Center, the June 30, 1975, edition of Business Week declared,“Office automation has emerged as a full-blown systems approach that will revo-lutionize how offices work.” The article emphasized three predictions: the officesystems market would be huge; only firms with courage, persistence, and

PARC's graphical user interface, developedfor the Alto computer, inspired almost all subsequent GUIs. Shown here: the GUI for the Smalltalk object-oriented programming language.Cutline and photo credit: computerworld.com

The Xerox Alto, considered the first personalcomputer, was developed for internal use atPARC. Work on the Alto prompted related in-novations including WYSIWYG editors, GUIs,bitmapped displays and simultaneous filestorage.Cutline and photo credit: computerhistory.com

IXDS5503: Media History and Theory • PopplewellInnovation, Invention

and Missed Opportunity

enormous resources would succeed; the most likely winners would be IBM andXerox” (Smith, 1999).12

Tragically, this prediction was never to be realized. The Xerox Alto was not de-signed to be a commercial computer. “The original plan was to make 30 units forthe PARC computer science lab” (Rao, 2010). In August 1977, Xerox shelved aplan to market the Alto as a commercial product. It closed the door to any possi-bility that the company would benefit from the original and progressive personalcomputing technology they developed.

In December 1979, Steve Jobs infamously visited PARC two times with a team ofApple engineers. Jobs was shown the Smalltalk-80 programming environment,networking and most importantly, WYSIWYG – the mouse driven graphical userinterface provided by the Alto. “According to Larry Tesler, who conducted thedemonstration of the Alto for Jobs, the young entrepreneur immediately graspedwhat had eluded Xerox executives for more than half a decade” (Smith, 1999).13

Jobs promptly integrated the technology into first the Apple Lisa and then into theMacintosh.

Frustrated with Xerox’s singularly focused business model, many of the PARCscientist’s left the research facility to join Jobs at his request. Years later, SteveJobs had this to say about the missed opportunity for Xerox, “If Xerox had knownwhat it had and had taken advantage of its real opportunities, it could have beenas big as I.B.M. plus Microsoft plus Xerox combined – and the largest high-tech-nology company in the world” (Gladwell, 2011).

“Commercializing a radical new technology often means betting the company onthe outcome. In 1981 this had decidedly different meanings for Xerox and Apple.Xerox employed 125,000 workers, Apple forty. Virtually Xerox’s entire workforcewas focused on selling one type of product: the office copier. They representeddecades of corporate investment – hundreds of millions of dollars – in embeddedtraining, technology, and customer service” (Hiltzik, 1999, p. 392). Xerox Corpo-ration decided against taking the risk with unknown technology provided by theAlto and continued to focus on innovations that would improve their copier busi-ness.

Xerox PARC has often been criticized for its past failures to capitalize on some ofits greatest inventions, allowing other companies to cash in on its ideas. Xeroxfumbled the dawn of the personal computer era because top management waspreoccupied with defending its core copier business [from international competi-tors]. (Holusha, 1998). Nevertheless, its reputation as a technology innovator isimpeccable. (staff et al., 2010). From 1979 to 1998, thirty-five technology-basedorganizations emerged from Xerox’s research centers. Thus, contradicting thecommon perception that Xerox “fumbled the future” (Chesbrough, 2002, p. 803).

Steve Jobs with the Apple II computer, ca. 1979 - the same year he gained entrance to Xerox PARC.Cutline and photo credit: computerworld.com

Three Button Mouse: The Xerox handheld inputting device to interact with the point-and-click graphical interface. Photo credit: www.cs.auckland.ac.nz


This partial list includes enterprise and recent startup clients, as well as past andother spinoffs: (n.d.).

PARC regularly works with established companies to find technological solutions:

The Influence of the Alto and Other PARC Innovations The Xerox Corporation’s decision that it was a copier company and not a com-puter company led to the abandonment of the world’s first practical personalcomputer, the Xerox Alto. While Xerox didn’t capitalize on its groundbreaking in-novations, the direct influences of the technology discovered are unassailable.The pioneering use of icons, point-and-click commands, pull-down menus, localarea networks, ubiquitous computing and graphical user interface have been in-fluencing the design of software, personal computers and their descendants formore than forty years. PARC’s radical leap in tech evolution led to remarkablefeats in computing. Apple and Microsoft (arguably the most successful computercompanies) respectively created user-friendly personal computers (Macintosh)and the graphical operating system (Microsoft Windows) in response to growinginterest in the graphical user interface technology – first designed, built and usedat PARC.

Thanks to Xerox PARC, everyday people are now able to focus on using thecomputer as a tool to accomplish a task rather than on learning the computer’stechnical details. The early lifecycle of the personal computer can be wholly at-tributed to the innovations that arose out of Xerox PARC in the 1970s and thosesame inventions are at the core of virtually every digital product we use today.

Inspired by other networks, such as Alohanetand ARPAnet, they invented a “local area net-work” called Ethernet, first described by PARCengineer, Bob Metcalfe in 1973.Photo credit: www.wikimedia.org

A precursor to the PDA, the PARCTab was aprototype handheld device developed in the'80s that could be used with an office network.Cutline and photo credit: computerworld.com

After three decades as a division of Xerox,PARC was transformed in 2002 into an inde-pendent, wholly owned subsidiary companydedicated to developing advances in scienceand business concepts with the support ofcommercial partners and clients.Photo credit: sutromedia.com

• 3Com• VLSI• GRiD• Aurora• Optimem• FileNet• Metaphor

• Sunrise• Komag• Adobe• SDLI• Microlytics• SynOptics• StepperVision

• Entire• ParcPlace• Envos• Quadmark• PixelCraft• LiveWorks• XESystems

• LG Chem Power• P&G• HexaTech• Sony• Thin Film Electronics

• PowerCloud• BASF • Motorola• NEC• Samsung

IXDS5503: Media History and Theory • PopplewellInnovation, Invention

and Missed Opportunity

Resources

Chesbrough, H. (2002). Graceful Exits and Missed Opportunities: Xerox’s Management of its Technology Spin-off Organizations. Business History Review, 76(04), 803–837. http://doi.org/10.2307/4127710

Dennis, M. A. (n.d.). Xerox PARC | research centre, Palo Alto, California, United States. Encyclopædia

Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/706263/Xerox-PARC Euchner, J. (2012, September). The Evolution of Innovation: An Interview with John Seely Brown.

Research-Technology Management. (p. 18) Gladwell, M. (2011). Creation Myth - The New Yorker. Retrieved from

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/05/16/creation-myth Hiltzik, M. A. (1999). Dealers of Lightning: Xerox Parc and the Dawn of the Computer Age. New York:

Harper Business. (pp. 392, 451) Holusha, J. (1998). Putting Ideas to Work: The Case of Xerox PARC. Retrieved from

http://www.strategy-business.com/article/9854?gko=3a579 Rao, A. (2010). Lab Inventors: Xerox PARC and the Innovation Machine (1969-83). In P. Scaruffi &

A. Rao, A History of Silicon Valley. United States: Omniware Group. Smith, D. K., & Alexander, R. C. (1999). Fumbling the Future: How Xerox Invented, Then Ignored,

The First Personal Computer (1st ed.). New York: iUniverse.com. staff, C., Computerworld staff Follow RSS Computerworld, PT, 2010 7:00 AM, RSS, C. staff U., & RSS, U.

(2010). Photo gallery: PARC through the years. Retrieved from http://www.computerworld.com/article/2515857/computer-hardware/photo-gallery--parc-through-the-years.html?page=9

Weiss, T. R. (2010, September 20). Xerox PARC turns 40: Marketing four decades of tech

innovations. Computerworld. (text and photo credit) (n.d.). Retrieved 13 April 2015, from http://www.parc.com/services/industry-contributions.html Footnotes 1 Smith, 1999, Intro, para. 20 2 Smith, 1999, Intro, para. 20 3 Smith, 1999, Chapter 1, para. 28 4 Smith, 1999, Chapter 2, para. 1 5 Smith, 1999, Intro, para. 14 6 Smith, 1999, Chapter 4, para. 7 7 Smith, 1999, Chapter 6, para. 7

8 Smith, 1999, Chapter 5, para. 34 9 Smith, 1999, Chapter 6, para. 48 10 Smith, 1999, Chapter 6, para. 48 11 Smith, 1999, Chapter 6, para. 51 12 Smith, 1999, Chapter 10, para. 1 13 Smith, 1999, Chapter 20, para. 2

14History of Computers and Computing, Birth of the modern computer, Personal computer, Xerox Alto. (n.d.). Retrieved 12 April 2015, from http://historycomputer.com/ModernComputer/Personal/Alto.html


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