Xerox, at its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), invented the graphical user interface, ethernet communications and the language of digital printing.

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It would be another bit of sweet vindication for Xerox PARC, which was maligned for years as the lab that invented great stuff--the computer mouse, the point-and-click interface, Ethernet networking--but did little to let Xerox shareholders cash in on it.

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PowerCloud Systems is a spinout from the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), the legendary subsidiary of Xerox responsible for the creation of Ethernet, the Graphical User Interface (GUI), and the laser printer among other innovations.

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They took the VCs' money and ran: The graphical user interface went to Apple and appeared in the Lisa and the Macintosh, ethernet went to the startup 3Com, and the digital-printing language was snapped up by Adobe Systems.

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