Xerox, an Innovator Hit by Digital Revolution, Cedes Control to Fujifilm
Xerox developed an early computer that offered a mouse and graphic screen
that allowed the user to navigate across the face of a monitor instead of typing on a keyboard — the very technology used by just about everybody using Apple or Microsoft software today.
Xerox, an icon of corporate America that pioneered the office copy machine as well as the graphic interface
and mouse used with today’s computers, only to be blindsided by the digital revolution, is coming under Japanese control.
Fujifilm would own just over 50 percent of the business, which would aim to cut $1.7 billion in costs in coming years.
The company said on Wednesday that it would combine its operations with its joint venture with Fujifilm Holdings of Japan.
It won the right to explore a technology, invented by Chester Carlson,
that led to the creation of the modern copy machine in 1938, and in 1959 Xerox offered an office copier that popularized the device.
Xerox fought Apple in court after the computer company enjoyed tremendous popularity with its Macintosh computers, which used similar technology.
