Perhaps it's interesting to think about what the actual 'idea' here was. Did Xerox ever have the understanding that using mouse-windows computing would usher in a new era of computing? If not, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the real idea here was Jobs', and that it was built in part with building blocks created at Xerox, which is true for most progress - it's always built on previous progress by 3rd parties.
From what I can remember of the Steve Jobs biography (and assuming it's accurate) yes, many people at Xerox understood that they had developed something revolutionary.
I wish we could get the story from Xerox's side. If they understood they had something revolutionary on their hands, why did they not try to market it themselves? What resource were they missing?
