Xerox - Rochester Wiki

Hello There

Xerox is a large local employer, designing and manufacturing copiers, printers, and "Multi-Function Devices." Once Rochester's second-largest employer, the company had a catastrophic downfall around 1999-2000, resulting in the loss of jobs, stock values, and a near-bankruptcy status (and in the library, the staff dropped from about 60 to 7 staff members). Xerox is in the process of making their comeback, thanks largely to new CEO Anne Mulcahy and their focus on developing color printing. And their new machine is a beast: an entire on-demand "digital production press." It costs about $500,000, and they have sold 500 so far. There's a team on hand who monitors each machine 24 hours a day, and will fly out to inspect any machine that exhibits even the slightest tendency to malfunction.

In 1906, the Haloid Company was formed in Rochester, manufacturing and selling photographic paper. In 1938, Chester Carlson made the first xerographic image in his lab, I believe it says "10-22-38 ASTORIA." In 1942, Carlson received a U.S. Patent for his process, and in 1947, Haloid acquired the rights to it, via Joseph C. Wilson, a University of Rochester alumnus. Haloid then became "Xerox" in honor of its newly acquired process and in 1959 released the Xerox 914, the first actually-useful office copier. Subsequent years brought acquisitions, mergers, patent and marketing rights to Central and South America, and the Palo Alto Research Center.

There are currently 58,100 Xerox employees worldwide and, in addition to its slow crawl back from the brink of bankruptcy, Xerox has been honored by the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley for its "bold, confident action in support of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community." Xerox received the GAGV's 2005 Courageous Leadership Award, after being nominated by GALAXE. From the GALAXE website: "'Xerox stepped outside the mainstream and used an openly gay role model to demonstrate strong support for our LGBT creativity while endeavoring to improve the strength of their brand,' wrote Kris Hinesley, executive director of GAGV, in a letter to Xerox about the award. Xerox was also noted for its 100 percent score on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's 2005 Corporate Equality Index. The index rates major U.S. corporations treatment of LGBT employees. Xerox has received a 100 percent ranking each year since the indexs inception in 2002."

Many things in Rochester are named "Wilson" after Joseph Wilson, such as Wilson Commons at the U of R, and Wilson Blvd, the main street leading into the U of R campus.

Comments:

Note: You must be logged in to add comments

2005-10-24 23:00:40 hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.................... ha! —RossHattori

2007-03-31 23:20:55 Xerox's webster location has been actively hiring .Net developers and other IT people in an expanding group to build web based applications. —TravisOwens