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Minor nitpick: AT&T has done a shit-ton of research: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs edit: apparently a different
by pizza 13y ago
Minor nitpick: AT&T has done a shit-ton of research: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs
edit: apparently a different beast than today's AT&T
- hnriot 13y agoAnd little things like Unix
- mehrzad 13y agoand C
- jamesaguilar 13y agoHow long does a 100k+ employee company get credit for something a small handful of their employees did almost half a century ago? Not that C wasn't an achievement but . . .
- mehrzad 13y agoI take my point back as the AT&T of today is not the same as it was back then, but the fact that the company funded this research is what makes it admirable.
- flomo 13y agoThe old monopoly AT&T wasn't just a company but presented itself as an American institution. They heavily publicized their Bell Labs inventions to help keep the anti-trust regulators off their back. Unix/C certainly benefited from this.
- hacknat 13y agoI'm sorry. What have you done for me lately? C and Unix don't count.
- nuclear_eclipse 13y agoThat's not quite the same AT&T that everyone knows of today...
- aidenn0 13y agoMinor nitpick: The company now known as AT&T is essentially Cingular wireless; they bought the remnants of AT&Ts cell network and the rights to the name.
- pizza 13y agoThanks, didn't know.
- bdcravens 13y agoThere's a lot more to it than the wireless piece. Today's AT&T was Southwestern Bell/SBC which as you said, acquired AT&T and switched names.
- guiambros 13y agoThis explains clearly what happened with AT&T, and its multiple acquisitions over the years: http://videosift.com/video/Colbert-regarding-the-new-ATT http://videosift.com/video/Colbert-regarding-the-new-ATT
- wilfra 13y agoActually that is the company now known as AT&T Wireless. The company now known as AT&T was one of the 24 'Baby Bells' that were created when antitrust regulators broke up AT&T (the one that created Bell Labs) in 1984. The company used to be known as SBC Communications but changed it's name to AT&T after acquiring what was left of AT&T (mostly long-distance phone services) in 2005. Through a long series of acquisitions AT&T now owns 11/24 Baby Bells. Sources: [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T#History [2]My grandfather worked for AT&T for his entire career and I've involuntarily listened to a minimum of 100 hours of company history throughout my life.
- pasbesoin 13y agoAnd the now AT&T carried over SBC's senior management, with all their -- in my opinion -- bad attitude and practices. Today's AT&T is not the AT&T of yore. Neither in its technical research, nor in its management.
- nhebb 13y agoAT&T spun off Bell Labs in the 90's as part of Lucent. Lucent was acquired by Alcatel. Alcatel shut down Bell labs in 2008.
- aray 13y agoAnd of the computer science and other researchers that were at Bell Labs at the time, many now work at Google.
- wetmore 13y agoAnd then they started patent trolling with the trove of patents they acquired.
- tomphoolery 13y agoDoesn't say that on Wikipedia, did I miss something? Looks to me like they're just shifting Bell Labs' focus from basic scientific research and focusing all research into computer science aspects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs#2000s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs#2000s
- parasubvert 13y agoAT&T also started and continued "AT&T labs" in 1996, which still exists, and was populated by many ex-Bell Labs folks.
- kiba 13y agoIf any technology that was formed in AT&T labs that threaten AT&T's very survival or business model, they will certainly or did squash it.
- mathattack 13y agoBell Labs is long gone, and existed to appease the government about a monopoly. This is about BIG thinking enabled by the unique org structure. Everything about corporate governance says this is a bad structure. But they still might pull this greatness off!