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To: Cory Gault who wrote (19487)	5/20/1998 11:16:00 AM
From: Daniel Schuh	Respond to of 24154

Cory, you got it all wrong. The Gov't didn't "devestate" (sic) a great American company, they were just doing their little part, preparing IBM for Bill to use them in fulfillment of his manifest destiny of taking over the world. You read a little bit farther in the article, you get to this: A longtime AT&T executive who lived through the breakup of the Bell system concurred. AT&T technically "lost" its case when it agreed to a settlement that broke the old Bell System into a long-distance company and seven regional operating companies. But the executive contended that the company profited far more from this antitrust "loss" than IBM did from its "win." AT&T learned how to change with the times. By contrast, IBM became more deeply mired in the status quo and lost sight of how the industry was changing around it. (from washingtonpost.com ) That "mired in the status quo" thing happened after the dogs were called off, not before. A key turning point for IBM was when they tried to establish that all important "proprietary lock" on the PC, with the PS/2 Microchannel. Of course, at the same time, the IBMers made the arguably more devastating mistake of trying to work with Microsoft on OS/2 development. They eventually got that second one straightened out, but it was too late. And despite the occasional contrary opinion expressed here, most people agree breaking up AT&T was good for technology and competition. Overall, quite good for AT&T shareholders too. The big mistake there was leaving the local service monopolies in place. Sorry to intrude with this obviously commie inspired view of the past. I'm sure you'll be happy to straighten us all out with a more objective explanation. Cheers, Dan.