Xerox Wikipédia May 2026

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.

Under (1999-2000), Xerox’s first outsider CEO (ex-IBM), the company attempted a drastic restructuring. It failed miserably. Sales incentives collapsed, channel conflict erupted, and morale cratered. Thoman was fired after 13 months. xerox wikipédia

Xerox was blindsided. Its costs were high, its product line was outdated, and its quality had declined. By the early 1980s, Xerox’s market share in copiers had collapsed from nearly 100% to around 40%. The company faced a near-death experience. The most significant transformation was the for $6

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. By 2016, services accounted for over 50% of

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.