Article View: alt.folklore.computers
Article #620190Re: Important US technology companies sold to foreigners
From: Dan Espen
Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2018 22:15
Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2018 22:15
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2891 bytes
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com writes: > On Saturday, February 3, 2018 at 1:31:36 PM UTC-5, John Levine wrote: > >> >AT&T's management did not destroy Bell Labs. It was destroyed by the >> >lawyers who forced the breakup of AT&T. >> >> AT&T could have divested Western Electric and kept the operating >> companies and Bell Labs, but made the spectacularly wrong prediction >> that there'd be more money in long distance than in POTS. > > AT&T also wrongly predicted that Western Electric would continue to > be profitable. It knew at the time [Alvin Von Auw] that customer > ownership of sets and wiring was no long cost-effective. However, > it probably could not have predicted that W/E's business model of > building equipment strong enough to withstand a nuke attack was no > longer working, and consumers wanted cheap equipment, even if it > meant frequent replacement. That is, consumers would rather have > a cheap crappy $10 phone replaced every year than a solid durable > $40 phone lasting for 40 years. To be fair, today's "cheap" phones last a LOT longer than a year. I think I got 20 years out of my last set of wireless in-house phones. (The internal batteries stopped holding a charge.) I know I'm on 3 years with the newest set. -- Dan Espen
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