AT&T'S SMALL COMPUTER BLUES

"Big bureaucracies and little computers just don't mix," says business writer Thomas McCarroll, assessing AT&T's retreat from the computer industry. The company has announced that it would lay off 10,000 workers worldwide in its Global Information Solutions unit, formerly NCR until AT&T acquired it in 1990. AT&T has lost at least $8 billion in the computer market since its 1984 breakup with the Baby Bells, McCarroll notes, and with these cutbacks seems ready to retreat into its traditional telecommunications business.