The real inventors didn’t get a brass razoo for their work, even though you use at least one of them every day. The real hotbed of innovation in the fledgling computer industry was a skunkworks called PARC. PARC was owned by Xerox and was called the Palo Alto Research Center. In 1968 they created the first laptop. In 1973 they invented the PC, complete with a Graphical User Interface and a mouse. They also invented the Ethernet in 1973. Head office, in New York, was fixated on the photocopier and failed to capitalise on these IT creations deeming them useless. Steve Jobs recognised the value of the GUI and the mouse and introduced them in the first Macintosh. Bill Gates was so impressed with the first Mac that he recognised the value of a GUI and mouse for the first version of Windows, which he actually bought from a Canadian programmer. It could have been Xerox as the pioneers in the personal computer industry, but instead, they’ve been relegated to a footnote in the history of major corporate failures. The company is on the verge of bankruptcy and it seems that a merger with Fuji could be their only saviour. The ‘if only…’ call is strong, but far too late. They lost their focus and scrambled for diversification when things started to go bad but that only accelerated their demise. This is a lesson for all businesses, including yours. Regards, P.S. The lesson is, to choose one niche, one platform, one way of getting traffic, and focus on those until you have an income stream. Then you can experiment with other things, but get the money coming in first. This is a great platform to start with. |
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