[+] Brief History of Xerox


The first xerographic image was made in a makeshift laboratory in Astoria , Queens , in New York City by Chester Carlson, a patent attorney and part-time inventor in 1938. He spent years trying to sell his invention without success to business executives and entrepreneurs who didn't believe there was a market for a copier when carbon paper worked just fine. The messy and unwieldly prototype was not very convincing either.

In 1944, Carlson was given a chance by the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus , Ohio to refine his new process called electrophotography. Three years later, the Haloid Company, maker of photographic paper in Rochester , NY obtained the license to develop and market a copying machine based on Carlson's invention. Agreeing that the word 'electrophotography' was too cumbersome, a classical languages professor at Ohio State University suggested changing it to"xerography" which mean "dry" and "writing" in Greek.

Haloid coined the word "Xerox" and trademarked it in 1948 for its products. Inspired by the early, modest success of its Xerox copiers, Haloid changed its name in 1958 to Haloid Xerox Inc. The company became Xerox Corporation in 1961 after wide acceptance of the Xerox 914, the first automatic office copier to use ordinary paper. Today, the Xerox 914 i s part of American history as an artifact in the Smithsonian Institution.


Things You Didn't Know

	There is a Xerox copier machine in Air Force One
	Other than copiers, Xerox is also the inventor of laser printers, fax machine, mouse, icons and Ethernet among others.
	Xerox Corp was in the brink of falling apart in the 80s due to fierce competition from Japanese products but emerged stronger than before. Many books have been written on the revival such as "The Midnight Samurai" which depicts the monopoly to the near collapse to the remarkable revival.
	Fuji Xerox is one of the most successful joint venture between a US and Japanese company.
	In 1994, Xerox decided to go against the norm by making its corporate identity longer instead of shorter from "Xerox" to "Xerox - The Document Company"
	One of Xerox's major marketing blunders was not to take up the invention of computers.
	As part of a promotion drive for Xerox's Acolor 635 machine, artists in Japan were invited to produce artworks using the colour copier/printer.