--- description: "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 announced that it... title: AT&T'S SMALL COMPUTER BLUES image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # AT&T'S SMALL COMPUTER BLUES by [TIME](/author/time/) Sep 15, 1995 4:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) Sep 15, 1995 4:00 AM CUT “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 announced that it will 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](../../../magazine/domestic/1995/950731/950731.telecommunications.html "undefined"), McCarroll notes, and with these cutbacks seems ready to retreat into its traditional telecommunications business. AT&T'S SMALL COMPUTER BLUES ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6926210/atts-small-computer-blues/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6926210/atts-small-computer-blues/"},"headline":"AT&T'S SMALL COMPUTER BLUES","datePublished":"1995-09-15T04:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-23T00:14:08.494Z","description":"\"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 announced that it...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6926210/atts-small-computer-blues/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6926210/atts-small-computer-blues/","name":"AT&T'S SMALL COMPUTER BLUES"}}]}] ```