Did Xerox really BUILD the Sigma-7, or did they BUY it?  The Sigma-7 was
produced by Scientific Data Systems as a successor to their earlier 940
(which some considered a fairly good, though kludgy, time-sharing machine).
Xerox liked SDS so well they bought the company (like the guy with the
electric razors), thereby making Max Palevsky their largest single
stockholder and a very wealthy man.

I'll confess some fuzziness on chronology.  I worked for SDS in the summer
of 1966 and again in 1967 (my intro to programming!) and followed things
with interest thereafter, but can't remember whether the Sigma-7 came out
before or after the Xerox purchase.  Certainly Xerox was one of the early
examples of a large corporate entity buying an aggressive small company and
running it into the ground.  (Though, to be fair, much of this happened
with Mad Max at the helm of Xerox.)
--
Wendy Thrash   {allegra,cmcl2,decwrl,hplabs,topaz,ut-sally}!pyramid!wendyt
Pyramid Technology Corp, Mountain View, CA  +1 415 965 7200 ext. 3001