1) Do you see a logical contradiction in Xerox’s willingness to devote millions of dollars to support pure research sites like PARC and its refusal to commercially introduce the products developed?
2) How did Xerox’s strategic vision work in favor of or against the development of radical new technologies such as the Alto?
3) What other unforeseeable events contributed to make Xerox’s executives unwilling to take any new risks precisely at the time the Alto was ready to be released?
4) “Radical innovation cannot be too radical if we want it to be commercially successful.” Argue either in favor of or against this statement.
The Xerox Alto is a fascinating story of a large organization fumbling the biggest technological advance in the latter half of the 20th Century. Xerox should have been poised to reap billions; it invested in an advanced research center (PARC), hired the best and brightest talent in this fledgling industry, and was first off the mark with a fully-functioning PC, including Ethernet, laser printing, word processing, spreadsheets, and so forth. Instead, this case details how they managed to squander their opportunity through a moribund culture and attitude of “playing it safe,” and the inability to think creatively. In short, the Alto was simply too much for Xerox to know how to handle.