🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sat, 3 Feb 2018 11:49:09 -0800 (PST), hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

>On Saturday, February 3, 2018 at 1:39:07 PM UTC-5, Dan Espen wrote:
>
>> > AT&T's management did not destroy Bell Labs.  It was destroyed by the
>> > lawyers who forced the breakup of AT&T.
>
>> Actually, the breakup was proposed by AT&T.
>> They may or may not have lost the anti-trust suit.
>> At the time, I thought not.
>> Within the company, the story was that AT&T would be free to enter
>> the computer maker market thereby becoming the next big thing.
>
>IMHO, at the time AT&T made the compromise decision (circa 1980),
>their path seemed generally pretty reasonable, except, perhaps,
>for keeping Western Electric.  
>
>I think given the atmosphere of the time--there was a lot of anti-Bell
>feeling among regulators, legislatures, Judge Greene*, DOJ, and 
>newcomers who wanted a piece of the market, that AT&T was doomed 
>in court.
>
>* Oslin's book says Greene was clearly out to 'get' the Bell System--
>he thought it was an evil monopoly and he sought a reform agenda.
>
>
>> Ridiculous.
>
>Wanting to get into the computer business was certainly a good
>decision by AT&T.  The company had outstanding talent and 
>experience in electronics and software.  It had the name.
>It had Bell Labs and W/E to develop and manufacture stuff.  
>Unfortunately, like so many other large American companies,
>it just didn't 'click' in the computer marketplace.
>
>Remember, IBM was terrified in the 1950s of big players
>like RCA and General Electric who had so much more than
>IBM did, yet IBM prevailed.
>
>Indeed, at the time, everyone thought AT&T would give IBM
>stiff competition in computers (and IBM would give AT&T
>competition in communications).
>
>For whatever reasons, AT&T didn't succeed at computers.

Mostly didn't see where the market was going.   In hindsight the way
to structure it would have been to have two of the Baby Bells compete
in CPU manufacture, another couple in hardware, and another one sells
Unix with all the bells and whistles for, say, 200 bucks to all
comers.  They'd have addressed all the concerns--second source for
processors, second source for assembled machines, well established
operating system.

But they didn't do that.