[TMC] Why ?

[manualman at juno.com]

Teletype Corp. was a separate subsidiary of Western Electric, and did
have its own sales force. It also had its own research and development
structure. They were permitted to sell outside of the Bell System. With
the consent degree of 1982, WECO became AT&T Technologies, and Teletype
became AT&T Teletype and the march was on to now provide profitability as
individual entities to corporate AT&T. Having been in AT&T management
during the 80's, I can acknowledge that it was a very wild and crazy
time. Organizations and products came and went at blazing speeds as AT&T
and it's entities tried very hard to reinvent themselves and fit into the
new world of telecommunications products and services. Looking back, I'm
glad I was part of it.

Pete, wa2cwa

On Mon, 8 Dec 2014 14:51:11 -0600 (CST) Jim Haynes
<jhhaynes at earthlink.net> writes:
> 
> There are some parallels in what happened to Teletype Corp.  The 
> company
> was absolutely world class in designing and manufacturing 
> complicated
> mechanical equipment.  Electronics was not neglected - the company 
> was
> designing some transistorized equipment by the mid-1950s and toward
> the end was manufacturing its own MOS integrated circuits.  But the
> value of the plant and shop floor know-how for mechanical stuff
> evaporated practically overnight as electronics replaced 
> mechanisms.
> 
> A unique problem was that the company was owned by AT&T and was
> pretty much dependent on the parent company for marketing and
> product planning.  And AT&T was a near monopoly.  And there was a
> consent decree which prohibited AT&T and its subsidiaries from
> marketing any products not originally intended for the telephone
> company's business (with an exception for government work).  So
> the company was not really able to reach out to the end-user 
> community.
> There was also a prohibition against engaging in data processing 
> work.
> Some may remember the FCC's lengthy and ultimately futile effort to
> determine the boundary between communication and computing.
> 
> Then there was the sale of the TWX business to Western Union, which
> was to crash and burn soon after; and then the Bell System breakup.
> After the Bell System breakup AT&T II was apparently being run by
> some clowns who couldn't figure out what business they were in.
> 
> But in the competitive arena, the PC revolution created a demand 
> for
> low-cost hard-copy printers which the Japanese companies largely
> filled.  And even before that the transition from hard copy 
> terminals
> to CRTs meant a transition from a near monopoly to a business that
> had a large number of competing manufacturers, and that could be 
> entered 
> by a garage-type company.  Teletype made some good CRT terminals, 
> after
> a few false starts, but apparently was unable to sell them in 
> competition
> with all the others out there.
> 
> jhhaynes at earthlink dot net