Xerox Corp. stockholders like to open their annual meetings with a round of applause for managementand they have ample reason. Since 1960, when Chairman Joseph Chamberlain Wilson introduced one of history's most profitable single productsthe Xerox 914 office copierthe company's sales have increased 18-fold (to last year's $701 million), its profits have grown 37 times (to $97 million), and its stock, long the shiniest of the glamour issues, has increased in value 50 times to the latest close of $277.67.
Last week's meeting in Rochester, N.Y., opened with the usual applause but ended in astonishment. Joe Wilson, 58, caught 2,200...