ENGH 101-f16 Final Exam
Paper on Xerox Parc--Brief Historical Argument
For Tues Dec 13th, write a 2-3 page paper (typed and double spaced) on one
of the questions below. Include at least three in-text cites and a
works-cited (MLA) or References (APA) page. See Diana Hacker to review citation formats. Also see the
sample papers on Purdue OWL site.
Make sure you
clearly define the issue you are exploring and set out your thesis somewhere
near the beginning of the paper. Do not try and cover too much since this is a
short paper and I expect you to include specific details and citations to
Hiltzik.
Bring the paper to our regular classroom during our
Scheduled Final Exam Time 10:30-1:15pm in Robinson B 108. You can
also bring the paper to my office in Robinson A 253 before then but make sure to
email me afterwards to make sure I received it.
You should write on one of the following questions:
- "Did Xerox Blow It" by failing to market one or more of the
inventions developed at Parc? This paper covers some of the same
ground as question #2 but focus more on the claim that Xerox "blew it"
(Hiltzik 389-398) because it failed to commercialize the inventions of its scientists
and engineers.
You may want to introduce this
paper by discussing Steve Jobs visit to Xerox Parc in December of 1979 and
the questions Jobs raised about Xerox during and after his visit (Hiltzik
329-345, 423-4). In developing your
argument, you should cover at least one invention discussed by Hiltzik as
well as his ideas on Xerox's failures and/or Clayton Christensen's notion of
disruptive innovation.
One fruitful area where you
might apply Christensen's ideas would be in explaining Xerox's relative
success in commercializing the laser printer (Hiltzik 127-144) or Ethernet
(178-192) as opposed to its failures with the Alto (261-5, 278,
283-287) or the Star (243-253, 261-270).
- Who was the most interesting and/or important figure who worked
at Parc and why?
In addition to individuals like Bob
Taylor, Alan Kay, Gary Starkweather (Hiltzik 127-144) and Bob Metcalfe (178-193) who we have or will talk about in class,
Hiltzik covers several other figures and inventions you could write about
instead (choose only one figure for paper #4).
These include Charles
Simonyi, Tim Mott and Larry Tesler, who worked on the Bravo and Gypsy word processing programs (194-210); Dick
Shoup and Alvy Ray Smith, who worked on Superpaint and video graphics
(229-241); and David Liddle, who brought the Star office system to market
(242-256, 361-370).
For an introduction to some of these later
options, watch the interview with the developers of the Gypsy Word processing
program, Tim Mott and
Larry Tesler on the companion website to the book
Designing Interactions. On the same site is an interview with
David Liddle, who was the project leader on the
development of the Xerox Star. If you decide to work on Liddle and the Star,
you should watch his Xerox Star 8010 Final Demo at Xerox Parc from 1998.
Note on question 1 above:
On Dec
1st, we watched a clip from
The Triumph of the Nerds on
Jobs
visit to Xerox Parc and his conclusion that Xerox failed to adopt the new
technologies developed there because Xerox was run by
"sales
and marketing" not "product" people. As we discussed in class,
Christensen's notion of
disruptive innovation provides us with some language to talk about why
Apple could benefits from Xerox inventions while Xerox could not. Gary
Starkweather was obviously a product person, in Jobs sense, but however
disruptive the laser printer might have seemed to the "toner heads" and
"marketers" in Webster/Stamford, the laser printer was delayed, not killed so
it was not as disruptive to Xerox's existing business as the personal
computer. In order to answer this question, you will want to think through
these issues carefully.