Blog: A Q&A With a PARC Pioneer Reflecting on 'The Office of the Future' 40 Years Later

A Q&A With a PARC Pioneer Reflecting on 'The Office of the Future' 40 Years Later
Scientific American (09/18/10) Larry Greenemeier

The way we work and live has been transformed by innovations pioneered by a cadre of researchers put together at Silicon Valley's Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) four decades ago to create "the office of the future." One of those researchers was PARC research fellow David Biegelsen, who has been at the research lab from the beginning. Although PARC invented such modern-day conveniences as the personal computer, laser printing, and the graphical user interface, it was less motivated and thus less successful in commercializing its own technology. Biegelsen considers the Alto, the first truly modern PC, to be PARC's greatest societal contribution, because it marked the beginning of personal computing. "More important than the physical platform was allowing the interpersonal collaborations to occur that led to new tools," he says. Biegelsen acknowledges that PARC's failure to capitalize on many of its inventions owed a lot to the developers' naivete, in that the innovations were very expensive and bringing down costs is no simple matter. He also recalls a certain disconnect in communication between the PARC researchers and the Xerox corporate management in Rochester, N.Y., which he attributes to "different visions for the future and about how to commercialize the things we developed."

View Full Article