Editing PARC (section)

===The GUI===
Xerox has been heavily criticized (particularly by business historians) for failing to properly commercialize and profitably exploit PARC's innovations. A favorite example is the GUI, initially developed at PARC for the Alto and then commercialized as the [[Xerox Star]] by the Xerox Systems Development Department. Although very significant in terms of its influence on future system design, it is deemed a failure because it only sold approximately 25,000 units. A small group from PARC led by [[David Liddle]] and [[Charles Irby]] formed [[Metaphor Computer Systems]]. They extended the Star desktop concept into an animated graphic and communicating office automation model and sold the company to IBM. 

====Adoption by Apple====
The first successful commercial GUI product was the [[Apple Inc.|Apple]] [[Apple Macintosh|Macintosh]], which was heavily inspired by PARC's work; Xerox was given Apple stock in exchange for engineer visits and an understanding that Apple would create a GUI product. Much later, in the midst of the [[Apple v. Microsoft]] lawsuit in which Apple accused Microsoft of violating its copyright by appropriating the use of the "look and feel" of the Macintosh GUI, Xerox also sued Apple on the same grounds. The lawsuit was dismissed because Xerox had waited too long to file suit, and the statute of limitations had expired.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE3D91E38F937A15750C0A966958260|title=Most of Xerox's Suit Against Apple Barred|date=1990-03-24|publisher=[[The New York Times]]|accessdate=2008-12-01}}</ref>