[drewda]

If you don't know the acronym SRI, then you probably aren't likely their target customer :)

The S used to stand for Stanford.

Just like RAND or Battelle or a half dozen others, it's nominally a non-profit organization that manages huge R&D projects, employs thousands of scientists and engineers, and manages government research facilities.

[usr1106]

Not personally, you have a point :)

I have used Ethernet since 1985ish without being PARC's customer either. I have used a mouse since 1987ish. If you had asked me before reading up on the topic minutes ago where the mouse was developed I would have probably answered PARC, too, and not Stanford and absolutely not SRI. Not sure how the former managed to build to build a "brand" for stuff they haven't even accomplished.

[rchiang]

It's a fine distinction that maybe computer historians know best. Doug Engelbart's "Mother of All Demos" showed off the first computer mouse. The computer mouse that shipped with the Xerox Star is credited as being the "first commercially available computer mouse".

Along similar lines, while the original Ethernet was invented at PARC, Ethernet gained more popularity in industry through Silicon Valley companies like 3Com (with founder Bob Metcalfe, recent ACM Turing Award winner and ex-PARC researcher) and SynOptics Communications (with founders Andrew Ludwick and Ronald Schmidt, both ex-PARC employees).

[kjs3]

Because SRI focused on gov/mil/intel projects, and Xerox shipped commercial products? There are lots of places like SRI you've never heard of unless you come from their world (e.g. RAND, General Atomics, etc.).

[retrocryptid]

Technically it was at the ARC (Augmentation Research Center), but the ARC was at SRI.