Will AT&T sell computers again?

Submitted by acohill on Sat, 01/31/2009 - 10:35

AT&T may be headed back into the computer business. Back in the early eighties, AT&T was selling some of the best personal computers available, made by Olivetti in Italy under contract. The group I supervised at AT&T did site inspections at the Olivetti factories. AT&T also was selling the first Unix-based PC, made by Convergent Technologies. That little one piece desktop computer was one of the most brilliant early PC designs, and it was far more powerful and capable than the DOS-based boxes at the time. But AT&T made a lot of mistakes, which is fodder for another article, and eventually got out of the PC business.

AT&T's success with the iPhone has some folks wondering if they might not be getting ready to roll out a netbook, a small, lightweight laptop. If it comes with a built in cellular modem, all of a sudden, you can carry around a laptop that has a 'net connection almost everywhere, just like an iPhone.

And what if this netbook was made by Apple, and ran the same operating system that runs the iPhone and Apple's bigger laptops? And what if AT&T sold these little beasts for $99 with a two year cellular data contract?

All of a sudden, every other cellular company is in very deep trouble...