While I am no fan of how AT&T ran its business, and the diminution of Bell Labs isa capital crime to humanity, it must be noted that AT&T was competing with MCI, who
was cooking the books. “How can they offer phone calls for $0.01/minute?” The answer:
they couldn’t, but did anyway.
BTW, there are still good people doing good work at Bell Labs. But it certainly isn’t
what it used to be.
Except that the new AT&T, liberated from the regulatory chains of the
Bell operating companies, never learned how to compete in the free
market. They got their clock cleaned by the competition. In
desperation they bought Olivetti and only managed to run it into the
ground.
-Paul W.