Xerox Tries To Go Green
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 03.26.08
Xerox is a company that, to paraphrase Abba Eban, never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. It owned the xerox copier market (even the name), and lost it to the Japanese because it was so addicted to leasing instead of sales. It invented the graphical user interface (the Xerox Star) and invited Steve Jobs in to have a look at it. It developed the first multifunction printer/fax/copier (the Hydra) and sold it for ten thousand bucks. Now, faced with following Eastman Kodak into technological irrelevance, it is at last making some smart moves.
Patricia Calkins, Vice President of environment, health and safety at Xerox, seems to get it; she says “What gets measured gets managed.” They have just introduced a calculator that tracks the energy usage and environmental impact of printing and copying documents. (::earth2tech)
According to the Wall Street Journal, it is also "marketing “high yield” paper, made using more bits of the tree, which is akin to newsprint. That’s one way to cut into office profligacy: Xerox says 45% of printed matter ends up in the trash before a day is out." It is also working on self-erasing paper, which will wipe itself clean just before being fed back into the tray. Oh, there are a lot of people wishing their mortgages were printed on that! ::Wall Street Journal
UPDATE: Kodak points out that while we are no longer snapping our Instamatics with flashcubes, they are still a force to be reckoned with, especially in the PR department. Manager of Communications Christopher Veronda was on our case in minutes, pointing out that "Kodak remains one of the Top 20 companies in patents awarded by the U.S. Patent Office. And that we've successfully transformed to a digitally oriented company, with 70 percent of revenues from digital products, including what has been called by industry analysts a "powerhouse" portfolio in the printing and publishing industry. And we invented the digital camera and jpeg format, so every company in the digital imaging business uses our technology."
Perhaps with both Xerox and Kodak, Rochester has a chance at reinvention and revitalization too.
Xerox are one of the leading lights on remanufacturing - their copiers are modular to such an extent that some of the basic parts may be re-used up to 7 times in different machines
Xerox and Kodak... both Rochester companies, both becoming obsolete. Poor Rochester.
Steve wasn't invited over to see Star and the mouse. He was just visiting. Although they were already patented, Steve patented the GUI and mouse for Apple. Then, when Windows came along, Steve sued Microsoft for violating "his" patent. A convicted felon with marketing instincts almost as great as his ego.
Xerox's Phaser line of Laser Printers are probably the greenest out there, considering that the "solid-ink technology" that they use gets rid of the empty toner cartridges, and they are so easy to load, and the ink are pretty much almost waste free. Now if they could only package those solid ink cubes in bidegradable wrappers. :)
http://www.office.xerox.com/solid-ink/enus.html