May 11, 2000 WSJ
Asides
A Point of Disclosure
AT&T is upset for understandable reasons about the May 1 article,
"AT&T's Wireless Debacle," by George Gilder and Richard Vigilante. It is
particularly upset that the article failed to disclose Mr. Gilder's long-held
investment, now worth some $500,000, in Qualcomm, which pioneered
the CDMA wireless technology competing with the TDMA chosen by
AT&T. Mr. Gilder's investment is a matter of public record, mentioned for
example in a Boston Globe profile in March, and we are sure the views
expressed in the article are responsible for the investment rather than the
other way around. Yet AT&T clearly has a point. Not including this in an
article dealing directly with the technological battle was, given
contemporary sensibilities, a lapse of judgment by our writer and an
oversight by us.
This does not affect the substantive points made in the article, and we will
as a matter of course also make appropriate space available to AT&T for
its response to them. |
