CHARLES HOLT,XEROX INNOVATOR DIES

[Anonymous]

Charles Holt, Xerox innovator, dies
Retired engineer credited with leading firm’s digital transition
oct 2005 – Charles “Chip” Holt of Victor, the Xerox Corp. executive
known as the father of the company’s revolutionary DocuTech line of
copiers, died Saturday of cancer. He was 67.
Mr. Holt was the chief engineer and executive in charge of creating the
original DocuTech. When it came to market in 1990, DocuTech was the
first truly digital copier, pushing Xerox away from its traditional
light-lens analog copying business and toward a business plan that
focused on digitally created documents.
The DocuTech line merged copying and digital technology and helped turn
copiers into devices that allowed scanning, faxing, editing and
printing.
The DocuTech line is credited with helping to create the Print-on-Demand industry, worth an estimated $30 billion annually.
“Perhaps more than any person since (xerography inventor) Chester
Carlson and (early company executive) John Dessauer, Chip provided
technical vision and leadership that transformed the Xerox
Corporation,” said Charles Duke, a colleague on the DocuTech launch who
serves as vice president and senior research fellow at Xerox’s Wilson
Center for Research and Technology in Webster.
“Chip was both the architect and initial implementer of this product line,” Duke said.
Holt retired from Xerox in 1999.
In 2004, the DocuTech line had contributed $17 billion in sales to
Xerox. In 2003, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
honored Xerox with the corporate research equivalent of the Nobel prize
for the creation of DocuTech.
Mr. Holt is survived by his wife, Kathleen Knapp Holt; two daughters, Shawnee Krawiec and Kristie Holt; and three grandchildren.
Mr. Holt was an avid golfer who loved to cook, his wife said.
“He loved being with his friends and he had an incredible number of friends,” she said.

[Author]

October 4, 2005 at 10:48 AM