🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thu, 1 Feb 2018 17:07:51 -0800 (PST)
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> Xerox joins 
> once formidable tech companies like Kodak and BlackBerry that 
> lost the innovation footrace.

	Oh the irony.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

In article <8qtb7d5n9t5h883cc...@4ax.com>,
J. Clarke  <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>The action was done over time by AT&T's own management.
>
>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.




-- 
Regards,
John Levine, jo...@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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.  Central office equipment would
no longer be in service for 30-50* years, but relatively short time
as new electronics made old gear obsolete.

* Bell kept some old exchanges, such as panel in NYC, in service
far longer than planned, with resultant poor service, partly due to
the delay in developing and deploying ESS.  Bell also kept step-by-step
in service longer but failed to maintain it adequately, again causing
service troubles.

In article <p54v67$21sc$1...@gal.iecc.com>, John Levine  <jo...@taugh.com> wrote:
>In article <8qtb7d5n9t5h883cc...@4ax.com>,
>J. Clarke  <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>The action was done over time by AT&T's own management.
>>
>>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.
>
>
>
>
>-- 
>Regards,
>John Levine, jo...@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
>Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

Absolutely, that's a bad strategic call thinking that Long Distance would
continue as the corporate cash call in the future and not seeing
the local loop and modems/networks/video services as the future.

They should've negotiated a government funded transition to fiber to the home
and the could've transitioned the country to a new Bell System.

We're getting close to having less cable/phone/internet suppliers than there
were operating Baby Bells.


Bill


Bill

In article <p54vka$b5v$1...@dont-email.me>,
Dan Espen  <dan1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On Sat, 3 Feb 2018 16:18:56 -0000 (UTC), pechter@t61.(none) (William
>> Pechter) wrote:
>>
>>>In article <kq7a7d1sjsqnltmkm...@4ax.com>,
>>>J. Clarke  <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>Bell Labs was killed in 1984.  It took a long time to die but that's
>>>>when the knife went in.  I like to believe that there is a special
>>>>Hell for all the lawyers involved in that action.
>>>
>>>Killed, nope.  It was suicide.
>>>
>>>The action was done over time by AT&T's own management.
>>
>> 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.
>
>Ridiculous.
>
>-- 
>Dan Espen

In '84 they proposed that they outsource the Bell Labs data center operations
to DEC and were looking to merge.  I think the Vax envy led them
to try to sell computers commercially (3b20 simplex sold against VAX) and
later to the NCR takeover.

Neither were successful.  I wonder if that DEC merger that was rumored in '84
was part of the deal... but there was a lot of corporate secrecy after
the stuff fell apart.

Wife at Bell Labs claimed she saw a in-house newsletter about the DEC taking
over the operations and sysadmin around then.  She led me to believe that
the newsletter was supposedly removed from distribution posts at the 
labs and destroyed.

Bill
collected and destroyed.


Bill 

In article <9d71bdb2-2096-4bf3...@googlegroups.com>,
 <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.
>
>

One of the fun things I saw at Pyramid wat the problem with AT&T's union
field service crew being unwilling to troubleshoot machines running under
Unix.  They only were willing to run completely off-line diags which didn't 
exist at Pyramid in the field, IIRC.

The techs threatened a walkout at Pyramid's training.

They AT&T System 7000 were rebadged Pyramid MIServer class boxes.
One of the moves to the DC/OSx was the move to SVR4 on MIPS... which
died when AT&T purchased NCR.

Bill

On Saturday, February 3, 2018 at 3:23:45 PM UTC-5, none William Pechter wrote:

> >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.

> Absolutely, that's a bad strategic call thinking that Long Distance would
> continue as the corporate cash call in the future and not seeing
> the local loop and modems/networks/video services as the future.

IMHO, in 1980, when AT&T made their plans, keeping long distance
seemed like a good idea.  Here's why:

. Regulators were tightly focused on local service, which included
considerable POTS that was expensive to serve yet generated little
revenue.  In poor areas, regulators made it easier for customers
to not pay their bills yet keep service, so revenue took a hit.
Urban areas had crime troubles, adding to expenses.  Local service
did not seem to have much of a future.

. In contrast, all the growth seemed to be in long distance, both
voice and especially data.  

. New technology would allow lower costs and thus higher profits
in long distance.

. Economies of scale were more and more important, and AT&T would
have them.

. Regulators were more focused on individual service, not as much
long distance.


> They should've negotiated a government funded transition to fiber to the home
> and the could've transitioned the country to a new Bell System.

In 1980, I don't think fiber technology was mature enough yet for
home service--too expensive (especially in terms of terminal
equipment.)  Also, at that time, I don't think regulators would allow
AT&T to carry TV signals--that belonged to cable.


> We're getting close to having less cable/phone/internet suppliers than there
> were operating Baby Bells.

True.

On Sat, 03 Feb 2018 13:39:06 -0500, Dan Espen <dan1...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On Sat, 3 Feb 2018 16:18:56 -0000 (UTC), pechter@t61.(none) (William
>> Pechter) wrote:
>>
>>>In article <kq7a7d1sjsqnltmkm...@4ax.com>,
>>>J. Clarke  <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>Bell Labs was killed in 1984.  It took a long time to die but that's
>>>>when the knife went in.  I like to believe that there is a special
>>>>Hell for all the lawyers involved in that action.
>>>
>>>Killed, nope.  It was suicide.
>>>
>>>The action was done over time by AT&T's own management.
>>
>> 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.

You make it sound like AT&T just spontaneously said "we're going to
break up into a bunch of little companies that compete with each
other".

>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.

That story is told.  However if the lawyers hadn't been involved they
would never have done it.
>
>Ridiculous.

On Sat, 3 Feb 2018 18:31:35 -0000 (UTC), John Levine <jo...@taugh.com>
wrote:

>In article <8qtb7d5n9t5h883cc...@4ax.com>,
>J. Clarke  <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>The action was done over time by AT&T's own management.
>>
>>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.

Could never have sold that one to the courts.  The big motivator for
the lawsuit was that MCI wanted to play in long distance.

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

On 2018-02-03, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com <hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:

> 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.

'zackly.  The Economy depends on consumers being stupid.

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored.  Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

On 4 Feb 2018 02:29:24 GMT, Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid>
wrote:

>On 2018-02-03, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com <hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
>'zackly.  The Economy depends on consumers being stupid.

Funny thing, all my cheap crappy 10 buck phones still worked the last
time I had a phone line to connect them to.  But I don't feel any need
for such any longer.

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> writes:
> other folklore ... guy doing M&A didn't bother to check ROLM's books
> the quarter that they were acquired ... turns out it was the quarter
> ROLM went into the RED.

I.B.M. to Sell Rolm to Siemens
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/14/business/ibm-to-sell-rolm-to-siemens.html?pagewanted=all

Four years ago, when I.B.M. purchased Rolm, an innovative Silicon Valley
company, many experts said the stage was being set for a global
high-technology showdown between I.B.M., the world's largest computer
maker, and the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the
telecommunications giant. Ahead of Its Time

... snip ...

later after leaving IBM ... was doing financial standards and secure
chip. Siemens was in the process of spinning of its chip business as
Infineon and we were dealing with person that would head up Infineon
... started out with some offices in the old ROLM campus ... but they
were getting building on 1st street (up near intersection with 101,
near airport). Infineon was then listed on NYSE and guy got to ring
the bell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infineon_Technologies

We had meetings with Infineon in Siemens chip offices in Munich and
asked to do security walk through of their new secure chip plant in
Dresden. They did some runs of chips for some pilot ... also used at BAI
world wide retail banking show in 1999 ... old reference
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#217 AADS/X9.59 demo & standards at BAI (world-wide retail banking) show
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#224 X9.59/AADS announcement at BAI this week

some X9.59 standards ref
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#x959
some AADS refs and patents
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/x959.html#aads

recent post about chipcards imploding around turn of century
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018.html#94 Predicting the future in five years as seen from 1983
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018.html#110 Making Computers Secure

old afc post mentioning Dresden walk-through
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003k.html#53 Getting Old

On Saturday, February 3, 2018 at 5:15:44 PM UTC-5, Dan Espen wrote:

> > 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.

At the time of Divestiture, Conair, the hair dryer company,
made a $10 cheap landline phone (cordless phones weren't out
yet).  It sounded terrible.  Yank it or drop it and it stopped
working.  But it was cheap.  There were even cheaper sets out
there that were given away as a bonus for buying some product;
they were even worse.

BUT, consumers no longer had to pay that $1/month rental charge,
which a great many people disliked.  Further, the cheapo phones
did look better, using pretty stylish.  The Western Electric
sets were a 20-30 year old internal design.

I remember at yard sales the cheapo phones quickly became
available.  If I asked the seller if they had any Western
Electric phones, the reply was always, "No, we're keeping those."

On Saturday, February 3, 2018 at 9:30:22 PM UTC-5, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> > 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.
 
> 'zackly.  The Economy depends on consumers being stupid.

True.  But also, the Economy depends on consumers getting bored
and wanting new stuff for the sake of being new.

The Model T was an excellent car of its day.  But consumers were
getting bored with it.  The competition introduced flashier models.
Initially, Henry Ford refused to respond, but his family pushed
him to finally come out with the Model A.

GM's Alfred Sloan came up with the annual model year, as well as
the status climb of different models.  Very successful marketing.

On Monday, February 5, 2018 at 8:46:14 PM UTC-5, Peter Flass wrote:

> > I'm scared that one of these days Verizon will notify me that
> > they'll cut off my classic landline.  I'll be S.O.L.
> > 
> 
> I don't think they can, legally. I don't know why I keep my landline -
> we're away now six months a year, and we've gotten used to using our cell
> phones. Despite the terrible quality, there are a lot of advantages to each
> of us having our own phone, and being able to take (and make) calls when
> we're out.

Here is an article about it:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/bluesky/originals/ct-illinois-telecom-bill-att-bsi-20170321-story.html

Both Verizon and AT&T have claimed that customers have abandoned
the traditional landline.  There have been numerous articles about
how Verizon has stopped doing maintenance on them, leaving customers
to suffer, even when there is no alternative.

Dan Espen <dan1...@gmail.com> writes:
> The IBM 1311 was the predecessor to the IBM 2311.
> Same size cabinet, layout, disks.
> The key difference was that the IBM 1311 could be
> read and written with really simple commands.
> On our 1440 we used a 500 character routine to do everything
> we needed with the disk.
> The IBM 2311 required an entire OS to use.

CMS had a 64kbyte OS/360 simulation code that included reading (but not
writing) OS/360 disks. In the mid-70s the VM370 development
significantly enhanced that simulation with approx. another 64kbytes of
OS/360 simulation code that included general OS360/MVS disk R/W support.

However, before that was included in release and shipped to customers
... the Future System effort imploded
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys

there was made rush to get products back into the 370 pipeline and head
of POK managed to convince corporate to kill the VM370 product, shutdown
the burlington mall development group, and transfer all the people to
POK MVS/XA. As part of that everything in Burlington Mall bldg
(originally vacant SBC part of the service bureau settlement) that
hadn't already shipped to customers ... evaporated/disappeared. Also
news of the shutdown/transfer managed to leak early and several people
managed to exscape ... many to DEC and the new VAX/VMS effort (including
the person primarily responsible for the latest OS/360 simulation
enhancements).

We used to joke that the CMS OS/360 64kbytes of code (that could have
grown to 128kbyte of code) was a much more efficient simulation of
OS/360 than the 8mbyte MVS simulation of OS/360