Innovate or Perish? Innovate and Perish?

"President Bush will hand Xerox's Sophie Vandebroek the National Medal of Technology at the White House in late July. It will be a sweet moment for her and for a company that was built on a world-changing innovation - xerography - but that lost its way for a while in the Digital Revolution. The story of how Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970s failed to capitalize fully on two of the most critical elements of the personal computer - the graphical user interface and the mouse - has become legend. Recent years have been better. At a shade less than $16 billion, revenues have not changed much since 2003, but Xerox has increased profits every year, added $7 billion in market cap, and more than tripled its profit margins. One key to the turnaround: Xerox has become an innovation power again, producing new technologies that can read, understand, route, and protect documents, among other things. Leading that effort is Vandebroek, the company's chief technology officer since late 2005. Her task is to keep Xerox at the leading edge of infotech progress in ways that make shareholders richer."

(“Xerox's Inventor-In-Chief.” Geoff Colvin. Fortune. New York: July 9, 2007. Vol.156, Iss. 1; pg. 65)


Innovation is NOT the point. What is the point? Wealth generation through value creation?