That was a really good read. That bit about the 1956 consent decree was ominously telling:
In agreeing to the 1956 consent decree, however, Bell System managers failed in three key ways to anticipate adequately the accelerated pace of technology –even that coming out of their own Bell Laboratories.
First, the decree precluded the Bell System from following its own pioneering technologies into other lines of business –such as selling solid-state components or computers (although AT&T was free to develop Bell Labs technology, such as the transistor, for use within its own system).
Second, the decree's mandate that the Bell System license all its patents to all comers ensured that other companies, both domestic and foreign, could use Bell technology outside of regulated telephone markets against the Bell System.
Third, although the decree effectively forbade the Bell System from entering non-telephone markets, it could not prevent other companies from entering AT&T's own market of local and long-distance telephone service.
Sounds exactly like what (((they))) would do. Wonder how much technologic advantage was lost by this?
Probably quite a bit, since most of what we use today has it's roots in some of Bell Labs' research.
The part about computing is the story I got during my tenure at the old WE manufacturing arm. That didn't go well for them - their first attempt at selling computers was some banal-tier overpriced rebranded Olivetti model, the AT&T PC 6300. While it was a solid enough XT+ clone (we had them everywhere at Lucent, mostly relegated to older test systems,) it wasn't anything special and was full of proprietary connections. That was their only attempt and all of that bluster was just that - bluster.
I do remember calling the helpless desk for service on one that ran my wire-spring tester. It just needed a CMOS battery. The kid they sent up had literally never seen an XT machine and argued up and down with me that nothing that old had a CMOS battery. I ended up having to change it myself because moronic children.
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