Berkeley Flame and AT&T - (nf)

[notes at ucbcad.UUCP]

#R:seismo:-40200:ucbesvax:16700004:000:1872
ucbesvax!turner    Nov 15 21:12:00 1983

Re: Mike O'Dell's "Berkeley Flame and AT&T"

    /***** ucbesvax:net.unix-wizards / seismo!mo /  4:59 am  Nov 15, 1983*/

    I suggest that AT&T owes an irrepayable debt to the US Computer
    Science Departments for (1) training a generation of software
    engineers who can use and support what AT&T is now selling,
    and (2) for creating a pool of users who demand that same product.

Not that I disagree with the substance of O'Dell's other comments, but I
think it's worth pointing out that here at Berkeley there was (and is still?)
a long-standing program of support from Bell Labs for talented students to
study at Berkeley.  The department here was especially encouraged to take on
these students (who are under the gun to crank out a Master's degree in
about 1 year) by BTL's practice of not only supporting the student, but by
providing an *additional* cash outlay to the department, in recognition of
the obvious fact that students are consumers of department resources.  This
program has been applied elsewhere, needless to say.

So, to me, there is no question of the debt being "irrepayable"--there is
even some question as to whether there is any "debt" at all!  As for
"creating a pool of users", I think that between the academic discount on
UNIX, and the subsidies for students (many of whom did work on UNIX, and/or
brought their UNIX expertise *from* Bell), that AT&T payed quite a pretty
penny to produce this initial "pool"--though it will probably be seen as
one of their more auspicious investments.  I don't know if this was all
intricately calculated, and, if so, by whom, but it certainly seems to have
worked out well enough for AT&T.  Call it shrewdness, but don't go around
trumpeting about how CS departments have been ripped off.  For many of them,
the situation has been quite the reverse.
---
Michael Turner (ucbvax!ucbesvax.turner)