WI: Xerox took advantage of the Alto Computer?

In short, Xerox invented the granddaddy of personal computers, and invented for it the graphical user interface, laser printer, computer-generated bit map, etc.
However, Xerox didn't care about it much as the research scientists tried, and so the research scientists let in anyone who wanted to see it. Two of the people who saw it were Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.
Xerox, in short, invented the information age, and then gave it away.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18807_how-xerox-invented-information-age-and-gave-it-away.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto

But what if Xerox had see the possibilities of what it had made, and truly taken advantage of it?
 
Bump: I probably worded this uninterestingly, but it is an interesting scenario. This would be a world where instead of Apple or Microsoft, Xerox would be it, and would make untold amounts of money licensing its patents and software designs to computer companies.
 
I think it's a case of "Same, But Different". The personal computer revolution is going to happen, just with different labels attached. In the beginning the industry and the personalities already working in it and along it's fringes aren't going to change substantially

Xerox, if it isn't swallowed by IBM, is going to play the IBM role producing the machines and operating systems businesses adopt and thus driving which machines and operating systems the personal consumer market adopts at one remove. An Apple analogue will arise which emphasizes a certain technological "nimbleness" because that's the primary niche left. There will be mergers, booms, busts, vaporware, dot-bombs, the internet, and all the rest just with different labels.

It will be the same but different. The only thing I can think of which might be changed somewhat Xerox's various attempts to produce an integrated document handling system. They've been trying to combine scanning, copying, storage, and processing for decades with varying levels of success. If they've PCs earlier they might produce such a system earlier or they might drop their copying heritage altogether to focus on computers.

Putting it another way, Xerox may no longer be making xeroxes!
 
The big thing here is affordability.

If you take a look at the price of Xerox Alto, it easily topped $10,000. Apple's great innovation was making the whole thing affordable-- although its first venture into GUI computing, Apple Lisa was also quite expensive. Xerox simply developed a specialised desktop publishing machine. Command line applications were (and are!) more efficient at everything else. If GUI required a premium of $9,000, we'd (meaning the general user) forgo it as well...


Didn't Xerox design the first mouse as well?

It's older than you think.
 
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