At the time, the developing technologies surrounding Star were unique to the industry. Xerox elected to keep their creations proprietary to maintain a competitive advantage; however, many companies were able to develop alternative approaches to these technologies, which then became industry standards.

Regardless, the Xerox Star influenced the design of modern day computer systems. An example being Star’s object-oriented user interface, which is used in today’s operating systems such as MacOS, Unix, and Linux. The second being the use of a pointing device for quick pointing and selection, which affected usability and accessibility of the device. Lastly, the contribution and value of designers became even greater. Seeing as screen graphics created by programmers did not do well in the market, designers who could make good graphics that translated well with everyone became crucial.