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For awhile. Xerox didn't realize the potential of what they had--it took time to realize their vision, by which time it was too late for Xerox. They failed to

For awhile. Xerox didn't realize the potential of what they had--it took time to realize their vision, by which time it was too late for Xerox. They failed to capitalize on their entire portfolio.

rayiner 11y ago
The bigger problem for Xerox was that in 1975, about five years after establishing PARC, the DOJ forced them to license their entire patent portfolio to Japanese competitors. That dramatically changed the dynamic at Xerox, which had been able to think big ideas while riding its copier monopoly. Xerox, AT&T, and to a lesser extent Google are strong examples of competitive markets being bad for innovation. Bell Labs didn't survive the AT&T breakup in the same form, and I doubt Google would be able to screw around with self-driving cars and wearable computing if they didn't have network effects protecting them from competition.
- api 11y ago
  Peter Thiel likes to make this contrarian point: competition forces you into a deflationary downward spiral where you must spend all your energy fighting with and therefore duplicating your competitors. An example of the latter would be Google Plus, which was an attempt to compete with Facebook by badly imitating them. Government is the ultimate monopoly, and government research can spend time trying to send people to space, look back to the origins of the universe, and so on.
coliveira 11y ago
The problem of Xerox was that they research group produced things much beyond their ability to market and execute. Xerox executives thought about the world in terms of printers, not in terms of revolutionary computers. They could have made trillions of dollars if they had executives who truly understood and valued innovation.
- davelnewton 11y ago
  They only barely understood the world in terms of printers, too. If they'd capitalized on their entire portfolio they could have taken over the world and we'd probably be a decade beyond where we are now.

For awhile. Xerox didn't realize the potential of what they had--it took time to realize their vision, by which time it was too late for Xerox. They failed to capitalize on their entire portfolio.

rayiner 11y ago

The bigger problem for Xerox was that in 1975, about five years after establishing PARC, the DOJ forced them to license their entire patent portfolio to Japanese competitors. That dramatically changed the dynamic at Xerox, which had been able to think big ideas while riding its copier monopoly. Xerox, AT&T, and to a lesser extent Google are strong examples of competitive markets being bad for innovation. Bell Labs didn't survive the AT&T breakup in the same form, and I doubt Google would be able to screw around with self-driving cars and wearable computing if they didn't have network effects protecting them from competition.

api 11y ago
Peter Thiel likes to make this contrarian point: competition forces you into a deflationary downward spiral where you must spend all your energy fighting with and therefore duplicating your competitors. An example of the latter would be Google Plus, which was an attempt to compete with Facebook by badly imitating them. Government is the ultimate monopoly, and government research can spend time trying to send people to space, look back to the origins of the universe, and so on.

coliveira 11y ago

The problem of Xerox was that they research group produced things much beyond their ability to market and execute. Xerox executives thought about the world in terms of printers, not in terms of revolutionary computers. They could have made trillions of dollars if they had executives who truly understood and valued innovation.

davelnewton 11y ago
They only barely understood the world in terms of printers, too. If they'd capitalized on their entire portfolio they could have taken over the world and we'd probably be a decade beyond where we are now.