Xeroid Binger (1967-1981) checking in. During my last couple of years as a Xerox suit I was in the Beta office for the mouse, the ethernet and the Altos systems. That was in Santa Clara, CA. I took executives from Ford Aerospace, Varian and HP on the corporate jet to Dallas and then on to Rochester to see all of these products in about 1979.
Being in the sales and marketing department we were back on top of technology with the 9700 Laser Printer. I formed a startup company using that product with the idea that we could eventually merge text and graphics. We had four software engineers working on that when suddenly the MAC appears on the scene.
And now the rest is history. We loyalists still use their products. We have the DocuColor 252 installed here. A very nice product. High quality printing with a finisher that folds and staples booklets and catalogs on the fly. We are 75 miles from the nearest service, however the machine never breaks down. As a former Xerox Branch Manager for Technical Service I can tell you that is a really big deal.
Looking at Xerox’s efforts in 1980-1981 from the point of view of office automation and publishing, it was exciting to work for the company who was bringing out the Xerox STAR and Altos. I joined Xerox and my wife promoted the adoption of the Xerox 860IPS at the highest offices of her major corporation. It soon came to be apparent when visiting the OPD offices that the people we were talking to were not expressing much confidence in this office automation concept, often describing the resistance of the IT management in the targeted corporate markets.
What did you see as a reason for Xerox not promoting the Xerox Altos in a head to head competition with Apple? Note, I realize Apple was not taken seriously at the time as a long-term survivor. What was the reaction you saw to the Apple Macintosh?
After our division was spun off as Genra Group, I provided the technical support for the Los Angeles region, and I qualified as an IBM technician and an Apple technician with the Apple Lisa and Apple Macintosh. We worked with an Apple prototype Macintosh equipped with a 5.25 in. floppy disk drive at one point. Why didn’t Xerox give us the STAR and/or the Altos and give us the opportunity to make their investment in Genra Group a better investment?