Wikipédia [new] | Xerox

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?

The most significant transformation was the for $6.4 billion. Overnight, Xerox became a giant in business process outsourcing (BPO) – managing payroll, healthcare claims, HR, and IT systems for corporations and governments. This was a radical departure from copiers. By 2016, services accounted for over 50% of Xerox’s revenue. xerox wikipédia

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 brand name "Xerox" remains one of the

However, this pivot left the original hardware business weakened. The rise of the "paperless office" – ironically enabled by the scanning and digital workflow technologies Xerox had helped create – steadily eroded the demand for printing and copying. Overnight, Xerox became a giant in business process

The company’s destiny changed in 1938 when a patent attorney and part-time inventor, , invented electrophotography . Frustrated with the laborious process of carbon copying, Carlson created a dry, electrostatic method for reproducing images. He famously used a zinc plate covered with sulfur, a handkerchief, heat, and a static charge to create the first "copy" (the word "10-22-38 Astoria" was written on a glass slide). After being rejected by over 20 companies (including IBM and GE), Haloid took a chance on the fledgling technology.