Xerox
Location: Norwalk, Conn.
CEO: Anne Mulcahy
Revenues: $17.2 billion
What they do: Document management, including printing, copying, digitizing and archiving
Disruptive qualities: Xerox is famously, if only slightly unfairly, known for churning out disruptive technologies, then taking a pass on actually marketing them. The mouse and the Windows-like GUI are among the technologies Xerox developed, then dropped. But the work at Xerox’s famed Palo Alto Research Center, now a for-profit subsidiary, continues innovating around the company’s core document management business, as well as in pervasive computing, aspect-oriented programming and IPv6 technologies.
The tech that makes them tick: Xerox is making a comeback of sorts with new tools for IT to use to read, understand, route and protect documents. Its latest wares for lawyers, for example, can scan millions of pages and figure out who was doing what when and where. The company is also a leader in securing sensitive documents for the health care and financial industries. And watch for Lean Document Production, which promises to improve printing and reduce costs. Xerox has 48 patents pending on the methodology.
Who they are disrupting: Xerox threatens paper and printer consumable vendors, storage manufacturers, paper-shredder makers and librarians.
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