Search

AT&T is a good example of how shareholder value creation can be used to guide strategy. Once organized along functional lines, the telecommunications company divided itself into independent business units in 1988. Later on, in 1992, AT&T adopted value-based planning as the strategic foundation of its plan to evolve into an organization with interdependent units that maximized shareholders' investments at every level of its operations. The changes in its managerial focus were necessitated by the deregulation of the telecommunications industry and the ensuing competition that it brought with it. AT&T's value creation system uses several financial measures, including traditional measures such as return on equity, operating margins and earnings per share as well as other measures for tracking economic value added such as discounted cash flow.

The gating factor on growth is not creativity or technology. There's plenty. It's distribution. If telecom developers are to thrive, they must have broad, painless, profitable distribution for their creations. […]

The Unix community is confused by the disruption of AT&T's dominance of Unix. The Open Software Foundation (OSF), which is comprised of several computer firms, has challenged AT&T's hold over Unix but no one is quite sure what kind of impact the OSF will have on the Unix community. The confusion is the result of AT&T's agreement with Sun Microsystems Inc that involved the combination of the two companies' Unix operating systems. Other, smaller companies were concerned about the effect this agreement would have on their business. Despite concerns over confusions of the Unix market, these other companies decided that the only solution was to form the OSF and develop their own version of Unix, free from AT&T-licensed code. AT&T has announced that it would like to see a single Unix standard and discussions are taking place between AT&T and OSF.

The head of the telecommunications department at a heavyweight corporation based in Connecticut is understandably confused and more than a little annoyed. Lately, it seems, all he's been doing is [...]

RBOCs & AT&T File ONA Plans with FCC WASHINGTON--Open Network Architecture (ONA) plans from the seven regional bell operating companies and AT&T were filed with the Federal Communications Commission last […]

'D-Day' is now history. A little over a week ago the much-heralded--and feared--divestiture of a giant monopoly went into effect. American Telephone & Telegraph Co. (AT&T) and its 22 local [...]

AT&T's vision of the 'Network of the Future,' as detailed in a recent company presentation, will migrate current intelligence-based networks to a knowledge-based paradigm. Based on the Plan 2000 market research study, the future network will feature virtual meeting services and multimedia 800/900 calls. Its development will coincide with the company's efforts to stimulate growth within the telephony market., I recently attended an AT&T presentation called 'Network of the Future,' which discussed directions for the long distance network. Basing its presentation in part on semantics rather than technology, AT&T [...]