There's another lab that was successful in a somewhat similar manner, a way larger scale, but still great results.

I recently bought a book on the Philips Natlab, same idea as Xerox PARC. They invented the optical drive (cd's), the wafersteppers that bootstrapped ASML, the company behind the machines that create chips and some other inventions that I can't find right now.

I have more details in the Natlab book which I have at home, if you're (or anyone else is..) interested.