PARC's rich legacy of innovation has enabled the creation of over 30 new businesses. We've listed some of the ventures that PARC has contributed to – as spinoffs, joint ventures, licensees, or other partnerships
– below.
| PARC Technology Contribution: |
Venture: |
natural language search |
Powerset, Inc. — announced beta version of its natural-language consumer search engine |
second-generation low-cost solar concentrator (CPV) design |
SolFocus — total $95 million funding to date (New Enterprise Associates, Moser Baer India, Metasystem Group, NGEN Partners, Yellowstone Capital, David Gelbaum, other investors); moved to new headquarters after being incubated at PARC until July 2007
|
text analytics & visualization |
Inxight, Inc. — acquired by Business Objects in May 2007, which in turn was acquired by SAP in October 2007/ January 2008 |
digital rights management |
ContentGuard — three-way acquisition between Microsoft, Time Warner, and Thomson completed in 2005 |
electronic reusable paper (e-paper) |
Gyricon LLC — Xerox now licensing e-paper display technology, after closing the subsidiary Gyricon LLC in 2005 |
| web-based meeting and presentation solution |
Placeware — acquired by Microsoft in 2003 to become LiveMeeting |
portable document reader |
Uppercase, Inc. — acquired by Microsoft Corporation |
| document-management processes |
Documentum — acquired by EMC in 2003 |
personalized search technology |
Group Fire (later Outride, Inc.) — technology assets acquired by Google in 2001 |
| book scanning technology |
Kirtas — licensed technology for its automatic book scanners |
| poly-Si and a-Si TFT displays; digital image sensing for medical imaging |
dPix — acquired by Trixell (a Siemens Medical/ Phillips Medical/ Thomson-CSF joint venture), Planar Systems, and Varian Medical in 1999 |
| electronic whiteboard technology & group conferencing/ collaborative meeting tools |
LiveWorks — technology assets acquired by SMART Technologies |
| Smalltalk object-oriented programming language |
ParcPlace Systems (became ObjectShare) — VisualWorks business unit acquired by Cincom Systems in 1999 |
| Ethernet fiber optics |
Synoptics Communications (later Bay Networks) — acquired by Nortel in 1998 |
| spell-checking software; linguistic data compression |
Microlytics (1985) |
| solid-state lasers |
Spectra Diode Laboratories — acquired by JDS Uniphase |
| non-erasable magneto-optical storage |
Optimem (later Cipher Data Products) (1980) |
