Inland Business Systems history

Carlson was born in Seattle, Washington, in 1906 and became a patent lawyer employed by a New York electronics firm.

In 1912 control of the company was sold for $50,000 to Rochester businessman Gilbert E. Mosher, who became president but left the day-to-day running of the company to its founders.

In 1935 Joseph R. Wilson, the son of one of the founders, decided that Haloid should buy the Rectigraph Company, a photocopying machine manufacturer that used Haloid's paper. It took several years, but when Haloid Record finally came out in 1933 it was so successful that it saved the company from the worst of the Great Depression.

By 1934 Haloid's sales were approaching $1 million.

1935: Haloid buys Rectigraph Company, a maker of photocopying machines.

The company's first public offering of Xerox stock was on September 16, 1936.

Chester Carlson created the first xerographic image in his lab in Queens, New York City, on October 22, 1938.

2,297,691 on October 6, 1942, for electrophotography, later called xerography, the technology that revolutionized the world of imaging.

In 1944 Battelle signed a royalty-sharing agreement with Carlson and began to develop commercial applications for xerography.

He saw the promise of Carlson’s invention and, in 1946, signed an agreement to develop it as a commercial product.

In 1948, the word "Xerox" was trademarked.

Haloid and Battelle announced development of xerography, and the first xerographic copier, the Model A, was introduced in 1949.

In 1953 Carlson received the Edward Longstreth Medal of Merit for the invention of xerography from the Franklin Institute.

In 1958 Haloid changed its name to Haloid Xerox, reflecting its belief that the company's future lay with xerography, although photography products were still more profitable.

The company came to prominence in 1959 with the introduction of the Xerox 914, the first plain paper photocopier using the process of Electro-photography, (later changed to xerography) discovered by Chester Carlson.

Fortune later called the copier "the most successful product ever marketed in America." Sales and rental of xerographic products doubled in 1961 and kept growing.

The two companies had a standing business relationship, having created the joint venture Fuji Xerox in 1962.

In 1963 Xerox introduced the Xerox 813, the first desktop plain-paper copier, realizing Carlson’s vision of a copier that could fit on anyone’s office desk.

The LDX system was introduced in 1964.

Revenues leaped to over $500 million by 1965.

Xerox’s first foray into duplicating, as distinct from copying, was with the Xerox 2400, introduced in 1966. “2400” denoted the number of prints produced in an hour.

C. Peter McColough, a longtime executive of Haloid and Xerox took over as CEO from Joseph Wilson in 1968.

The company became one of 100 largest corporations in the United States, and, in 1969, it moved to its current headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut.

After the success of its first copier, Xerox expanded into other information products and publishing businesses and founded PARC, a research lab in Palo Alto, California, in 1970.

Dessauer, John H., My Years with Xerox, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1971.

In 1973 scientists at PARC invented what may have been the world's first personal computer.

XDS was sold to Honeywell in 1975.

Xerox management was afraid the product version of Starkweather’s invention, which became the 9700, would negatively impact their copier business so the innovation sat in limbo until IBM launched the 3800 laser printer in 1976.

In 1977, the computer industry's first laser printer, the Xerox 9700, was announced.

The dispute was settled in 1978 when IBM paid Xerox $25 million.

In 1979, Steve Jobs made a deal with Xerox’s venture capital division: He would let them invest $1 million in exchange for a look at the technology they were working on.

In 1980, Xerox announced the forward looking 5700 laser printing system, a much smaller version of their 9700, but with revolutionary touch screen capabilities and multiple media input (word processing disks, IBM magcards, etc.) and printer ‘finishing’ options.

Attempting to expand beyond copiers, in 1981 Xerox introduced a line of electronic memory typewriters, the Memorywriter, which gained 20% market share, mostly at the expense of IBM.

The 10-series copiers were introduced as a result in 1982.

By January 1983 Xerox had unveiled a Memorywriter that could store large amounts of data internally.

The first laser printer success was the Hewlett-Packard (HP) LaserJet, released in 1984.

Xerox sold its publishing firms in 1985.

By 1988 XFS supplied nearly 50 percent of Xerox's income--$315 million of the $632 million total.

Xerox's comeback was so impressive that in 1989 its Business Products & Systems unit won Congress's Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award for regaining its lead in copier quality.

Prior to joining Inland, MarLett was with ComDoc in Akron, Ohio (a sister company under Xerox Business Solutions, Inc.) since 1990 where he most recently served as the Regional Director of Service.

By the end of 1991, Xerox was announcing the sale of three of its insurance wholesalers.

In February 1992 Xerox was ordered to pay Gradco Systems, Inc. $2.5 million to settle a patent dispute; and a suit settled in favor of Monsanto a month later was expected to cost Xerox $142 million to clean up a hazardous waste dump site.

With its core office products businesses on the upswing, Xerox announced in January 1993 that it intended to exit from insurance and its other financial services businesses.

To reinforce this image, in 1994 the company introduced a corporate signature, “The Document Company”, above its main logo and introduced a red digital X. The digital X symbolized the transition of documents between the paper and digital worlds.

During 1995 two of the groups were sold for a total of $524 million in cash.

Beth previously worked with Saxon Business Systems, (a sister company under Xerox Business Solutions, Inc.) since 1996.

In November 1997 the company began packaging its printers and computers in boldly colored boxes that would be more "exciting or enticing," as an HP spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.

The company planned to eliminate 9,000 jobs over two years, taking a $1.11 billion after-tax charge in 1998's second quarter in the process.

Klein, Alec. "Xerox Posts Operating Gain but Issues Warning." Wall Street Journal, July 23, 1999.

As the firm's financial performance deteriorated, Thoman was forced to resign as CEO in May 2000.

Most of the company’s 21st-century innovations occurred under the leadership of Anne Mulcahy, who in 2001 became the first female chief executive of Xerox and, the following year, its first female chairperson.

In 2002 PARC was spun off into an independent wholly owned subsidiary of Xerox.”

In June 2003 the agency reached an agreement with six executives (five former and one current, including Allaire, Thoman, and former CFO Barry Romeril), who agreed to pay $22 million in fines and other penalties.

Headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, Xerox was Number 132 among the Fortune 500 as of December 2004, with 58,100 employees worldwide, including 32,100 in the United States.

Xerox filed a patent in 2006 for photosensitive “erasable paper,” which produced prints with images lasting only a day, thus allowing for the continuous reuse of paper.

The company acquired the technology sales and services company Global Imaging Systems (GIS) in 2007.

In October 2008, Xerox Canada Ltd. was named one of Greater Toronto’s Top Employers by Mediacorp Canada Inc., which was announced by the Toronto Star newspaper.

On May 21, 2009, it was announced that Ursula Burns would succeed Anne Mulcahy as CEO of Xerox.

To this end, she oversaw Xerox’s 2010 acquisition of Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), which was involved in outsourcing business services.

In May 2011, Xerox acquired NewField IT for an undisclosed sum.

In December 2013, Xerox sold their Wilsonville, Oregon solid ink product design, engineering and chemistry group and related assets previously acquired from Tektronix to 3D Systems for $32.5 million in cash.

In 2017 it spun off ACS and other service holdings to form the independent company Conduent.

Beth Thomas, joined Inland Business Systems as President in January 2018, bringing a professional background that includes extensive sales expertise and seasoned executive leadership.