Xerox is an American company , based with Stamford (Connecticut).

History

This company is mainly known like the inventor of the Photocopieur and also manufactures Imprimante S.

It is at the end of the Années 1940 that a small manufacture of photographic products of Rochester of the name of Haloid decides to use the invention earlier 10 years by Chester Carlson, the Xérographie. The design of the first photocopier, Xerox Model has, and the success of the following models leads the company to change its name into 1958 for Haloid Xerox, then in 1961, becoming simply Xerox. The last X of Xerox was added at the origin to give to the name an aspect similar to that of another famous company of Rochester, Kodak.

The rise of Xerox thus comes from its exploitation of the xerographic patent of reproduction , allowing the photocopy of documents on plain paper. This patent by giving him an exclusive exploitation of the process over twenty years, it is from the start organized to survive beyond this foreseeable horizon.

Xerox for this reason always devoted a broad place to diversification and with the innovation, although not knowing always how to make profitable its acquisitions (Scientific Data Systems become Xerox Data Systems), nor to market its inventions.

In the Years 1970, the Xerox research center in Palo Alto - the Xerox PARK - invents the Souris (data-processing), the modern graphical interface and the icons. These ideas will be exploited in experimental machines like the Alto , then commercial like the Star . But these revolutionary machines are at the same time too expensive and too slow with technologies and the costs of the time (see Loi of Moore).

In November 1979 Steve Jobs pays a visit with the PARK. Among technologies being studied, Jobs discovers the graphical interface. the possibility of visually handling the contained informations in computer is still very new at the time. For Jobs, it is the revelation it has just found the part missing: OS must be masked for the user, via an graphical interface.

It turns over to the PARK the next month, this time accompanied by several members of the leadership team, and convinces the persons in charge of the Park to let Apple use technology. " " he explained to them directly why they had a brilliant technology, but that Apple could make it sufficiently accessible to change the monde" " , explained Wozniak (Co founder of APPLE). It was often said thereafter that Jobs had " volé" ideas of the PARK, by adapting the concept of graphical interface. it of it is nothing. Jobs simply convinced the persons in charge of Xerox, which seemed remainder little concerned about the future of the PARK, interest to leave Apple " to share this knowledge. An agreement is signed besides, and Xerox will invest a million dollars in Apple actions. Nothing was stolen, but the legendary persuasion of Jobs made its office once again.

A few years later, the system is presented to Steve Jobs come to visit the center. This one made work on the question the engineers of Apple, Inc., which designs a model twice less expensive than the Star which will be baptized the LISA ; then in 1984, this one remaining too expensive for the market, a degraded version of the LISA which gives up (for some time) its aspect Multitâches and into divided still the cost by two: it is the Macintosh, which will come at the right moment named to save the prestige of Apple of the technical and commercial failure of the Apple III.

Current events

In 2002, the president names Anne Mulcahy. Xerox account currently a little more than 70.000 employees.

In June 2002, the company had to admit having handled the figures of its accountancy. Handling would relate to 1,9 billion dollar, and would have been especially practiced in Latin America. These declarations involved an important fall with the purse of New York which was amplified by the recommendations with the sale of Merrill Lynch.

The press compares this episode in the life of Xerox with those of the companies Enron, which went bankrupt after countable handling involving the cabinet of audit Arthur Andersen, and WorldCom. Influential people and companies such as Dresdner Allianz evoked a collapse of the American money markets because of the negative impact of such news and thus advise a withdrawal of the investments granted the United States.

Simple: Xerox