It was invented, instead, by one man, Chester Carlson, a New York City patent attorney, who did the initial experiments in the kitchen of his apartment home in 1938. Carlson then looked around for a firm that would develop a commercial product from his invention. Finally, one small firm in Rochester took a gamble on the Xerox project. That which we did, a big company could not have afforded to do. We really shot the dice, because it didn't make any difference.
Small business can outcompete, and outinnovate, the giants.
Haloid Co., then Haloid Xerox Co., and finally Xerox, became one of the great business and stock-market success stories of the 1960s. They were caught off guard. In the world of business, no firm, even the giants, can stand still for long. The Xerox success story is a monument to what a brilliant and determined lone inventor can accomplish. It is a living testimony of how a small firm can innovate and outcompete giant firms, and of how a small firm, become a giant, can rethink and retool in order to keep up with a host of new competitors.