Xerox Wikipédia 〈2025〉

The brand name "Xerox" remains one of the most famous in the world, a genericized trademark like "Kleenex" or "Google." But the company is now a mid-tier technology services and printing firm, a resilient survivor rather than a world-beater. It serves as a powerful, cautionary ghost at the feast of every successful technology company: Are you building the future, or are you building a better buggy whip for the present?

Xerox had invented the digital future and then failed to own it. It is the ultimate case study in – a market leader so wedded to its existing customers and profit model that it cannot see (or act on) the disruptive technology it has created. III. Decline, Restructuring, and the Japanese Onslaught (1980s–1990s) While Xerox played in the high-end, slow-to-market workstation space, its core copier business was attacked from below. Japanese companies, led by Canon , exploited a loophole. Xerox’s patents expired in the late 1970s. Canon introduced a radically different business model: the personal or desktop copier (e.g., Canon NP-200). Instead of leasing large, complex machines that required service technicians, Canon sold small, cheap, reliable copiers using a replaceable cartridge system (the "all-in-one" toner, drum, and developer unit). This shifted maintenance from a trained technician to the user. xerox wikipédia

The revolution arrived in 1959 with the . It was the first fully automatic plain-paper copier. You could place any document on a glass plate, press a button, and receive a clean, dry copy on ordinary, untreated paper. It was a miracle of industrial design and chemistry. The 914 was enormous, weighed 650 pounds, and had a notorious tendency to catch fire (requiring an included "scorch eliminator" – a fire extinguisher). Yet it was an instant phenomenon. Haloid, having renamed itself Xerox Corporation in 1961, created an entirely new industry. The verb "to xerox" entered the global lexicon, a testament to its dominance. II. The Golden Age and the Innovation Paradox (1970s) With a near-monopoly on copiers (protected by over 500 patents), Xerox became a cash colossus. Revenue soared from $40 million in 1960 to over $1 billion in 1968. But success bred complacency in the core business. The leadership, focused on selling and leasing copiers, famously failed to see that the future was not about better copies, but about digital information. The brand name "Xerox" remains one of the

However, in a moment of visionary genius (or institutional irony), Xerox created one of history’s most influential research centers. In 1970, they established the in California. PARC’s mission was to explore the "architecture of information." It is the ultimate case study in –

Haloid spent years refining Carlson’s invention. The key challenge was finding a better light-sensitive material; the solution was , which could hold an electrostatic charge and dissipate it when exposed to light. To brand this new process, Haloid coined the term "xerography" – from the Greek words xeros (dry) and graphein (writing). In 1949, they launched the first crude xerographic copier, Model A , but it was manual and messy.

The response was a multi-billion dollar loan, asset sales (selling off its stake in Fuji Xerox, which was painful), and a massive layoff of 20,000 employees. But the darkest chapter was the . To hide operational problems and meet Wall Street expectations, Xerox executives had manipulated its leasing revenue accounting. In 2002, the SEC charged Xerox with fraudulently accelerating the recognition of equipment revenue by over $3 billion and inflating pre-tax earnings by $1.5 billion. The company paid a $10 million fine, restated five years of financial results, and its auditor, KPMG, was also sanctioned. The scandal was a humiliation. V. The Modern Era: Services, Fujifilm, and the End of an Era (2002–2024) Under Anne Mulcahy (CEO 2001-2009, the first woman to lead Xerox), the company physically and financially stabilized. She is widely credited with saving Xerox from bankruptcy. Her successor, Ursula Burns (CEO 2009-2016), was the first Black woman to lead a Fortune 500 company. Burns pivoted the company aggressively away from hardware and toward business services.