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Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!news.hawaii.edu!ames!olivea!uunet!ftpbox!motsrd!mothost!lmpsbbs!areaplg2.corp.mot.com!bhv From: bhv@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Bronis Vidugiris) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd Subject: AT&T&T&T throws in the Towel Message-ID: <1992Aug4.220118.20036@lmpsbbs.comm.mot.com> Date: 4 Aug 92 22:01:18 GMT References: <1992Jul24.185653.3196@kithrup.COM> <1992Jul27.164228.28312@gateway.novell.com> <1992Jul27.193757.3628@kithrup.COM> <1992Jul27.213657.29545@gateway.novell.com> <1992Jul28.213156.15525@flatlin.ka.sub.org> <1992Jul31.142716.10238@tpki.toppoint.d <BsF532.5p9@flatlin.ka.sub.org> Sender: news@lmpsbbs.comm.mot.com (Net News) Organization: Motorola, CCR&D, CORP, Schaumburg, IL Lines: 34 Nntp-Posting-Host: 137.23.47.37 Dateline: an alternate universe In a surprise move today, AT&T&T&T announced that it was dropping its suit against BSDI and UCB, and withdrawing from the Unix business. "We realized that we simply cannot compete in a free market - that's just not what we're good at", the president and CEO of AT&T&T&T said. "Thus we are dropping our attempt to enter the computer and operating system market, and instead concentrate on what we are competent at. It simply makes no business sense for us to throw good money after bad and continue to pursue our suit against BSDI and UCB - we might win, eventually, but there just isn't any profit in it for us." AT&T&T&T also announced that it planned to drop its monopoly plans on information services through the phone network. "We've failed at everything we've tried outside of our primary business - which is being a common carrier", the president and CEO said. "It's time for us to face facts - we simply are not competent to run the sort of business it would take to provide all the information services the public needs. No single company could do that - it's just not realistic. It's time to streamline our business, and drop peripheral businesses such as our computer business and our proposed information service businesses. By concentrating on our role as a common carrier, we can extract our profit from the flow of all information - and collect our fee for every kilobyte of data sent. We don't have to try and do it all ourselves. By encouraging third parties to do the actual work and take the risks involved in setting up the information services, we can all profit. It simply doesn't make any sense for us to continue go into businesses outside our field - we get beat up by the competition every time we try." Reaction from Wall Street was highly positive - AT&T&T&T stock went up sharply after the announcement. "It's about time they did this" one source said. "It's long overdue."