https://squamuglia.wordpress.com/2017/04/16/67/#more-67
https://squamuglia.wordpress.com/2017/04/22/yes-kids-cookie-...
And while SRI has had their impact in the computing industry, they also have other research labs that have very little to do with computing such as biomedical, education, and policy.
Ironically, Apple and Microsoft would never allow some stranger company to walk into their offices and see everything they were developing either. lol
Another great example of the overlap between Silicon Valley and military/intelligence. It's disconcerting how great tech for the masses is often spun out of a warfare motivation.
Over time Xerox has gone quite far from where it was when PARC was founded and I think internal support for it had weakened a lot.
The bigger problem both orgs have historically had is on compensation and retaining talent. A lot of people tend to leave or get poached by major companies and their R&D units - lots of former PARC folks at X, and lots of former SRI folks across various robotics companies.
Xerox's revenue has been slowly declining over that time (~$15B from 2002-2009, ~$20B 2010-2013, ~$10B 2014-2019, ~$7B 2020-2023). There's likely a few business-related reasons they are doing this donation now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_oldest_currently_r...
I wonder why some corporations don't see the value of R&D, or even "incidental" R&D, when you develop something revolutionary while you work on something profitable.
"As part of the donation, Xerox will enter into a preferred research agreement, called the Technology Exploration and Innovation Program, in which SRI will provide contracted research and development services to Xerox and its clients. Through the collaborative program, Xerox and SRI will identify topic areas relevant to Xerox’s core print, digital and IT Services business, with the final goal of creating proofs-of-concept and roadmaps to implementation. Xerox will also retain a branded Innovation Hub at PARC to host meetings, demonstrations and annual conferences for its clients."
It's unclear what the size of this revenue stream is compared to SRI's current revenues.
SRI where the original ARPANET NIC was, and had various important roles in the development of the net.
I really don't think they overestimated their brand, they just talk to their likely customers.
(I worked at PARC, never at SRI, but I had many friends from SRI, and there was a flow of personnel in both directions).
- Magnetic check ink
- ERMA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Recording_Machine,_...
More importantly: Stanford, SRI, and the high signal of connected people in Palo Alto created lots of inventions and companies. Sports metaphor: when they're on the team, the team scores more indirectly by their presence. Palo Alto-Stanford has been a modern "Venice" in terms of center of business-meets-academic since about 1940. Boston owns it in academia in sheer numbers of campuses and of reputation, but not when it comes to tightening the iteration loops of making money.
Students (et al.) had protested SRI's participation in secret (and military) research projects, and Stanford ultimately determined that secret research was incompatible with the university's mission.
Of course, like many universities, Stanford has aligned its actual priorities to focus primarily on endowment expansion and administrative employment.
TIL that FICO stands for Fair Isaac Corporation (or Fair, Isaac and Company, originally).
SRI is also where the “Mother of all Demos” came from.
> SRI formally separated from Stanford University in 1970 and became known as SRI International in 1977
The S used to stand for Stanford.
Just like RAND or Battelle or a half dozen others, it's nominally a non-profit organization that manages huge R&D projects, employs thousands of scientists and engineers, and manages government research facilities.
I have used Ethernet since 1985ish without being PARC's customer either. I have used a mouse since 1987ish. If you had asked me before reading up on the topic minutes ago where the mouse was developed I would have probably answered PARC, too, and not Stanford and absolutely not SRI. Not sure how the former managed to build to build a "brand" for stuff they haven't even accomplished.
Boyer and Moore used to work there. I used their theorem prover for early proof of correctness work.
It was an SRI spinout, acquired by Apple in 2010. https://www.sri.com/hoi/siri/
SRI has its fingers in a lot of pies..including surgical robotics.
I say this from personal experience. I created many inventions in "intrusion detection", spent years in data centers making theory work in practice. SRI sued me using vaguely worded patents.
It's a harsh accusation, but objectively true. They never built a commercial intrusion-detection product, but they did sue people.
> They never built a commercial intrusion-detection product
No, but they did give away things like Bothunter away (which is admittedly HIDS).
I'm sympathetic to the argument against patents, etc. I was your competitor in the IDS space and also made a very fast IDS and exited, and also was harassed by people without a product in the market (over sending TCP RSTs to close connections, of all things, where there was loads of prior art).
Wow, do the lawyers over on Reddit hate this! In the Appendix, you can follow the progress of a recent Facebook patent:
https://albertcory50.substack.com/p/lets-vote-on-it
I do tend to be inflammatory at times /s
SRI is a real research entity. I know someone who worked there, and he's not a lawyer. That doesn't make them any more admirable, of course.
