UK Lab Responsible for VNC To Close

NexUK writes "Guardian Online has an article about the imminent closure of the UK based AT&T lab , the place that brought us VNC, the popular desktop remote control system. The article talks about a nice "Toys" budget where the employees could buy gadgets without prior authorization." AT&T Strikes again, I'm surprised they haven't bought PARC and closed it down too.

Comments

TightVNC is Good Version

[elucidus]

TightVNC adds variable JPG compression and is optimized for slow connections.

So what happens to VNC?

[shaldannon]

I think that's my biggest question. Luckily I've got a couple UNIX tarballs around, but that's just archival. Is development going to continue?

Irony?

[swordboy]

When management shuts them down, will they do it in person or will they just pull up a remote terminal and shut them off that way?

Holy shit. . . .

[Com2Kid]

I am still out of breath, my word, this is. . . . horrible. What the hell is AT&T thinking? Just the other day I was thinking to myself how nice it is that there is such a company still around that is willing to support pure research and development, but now. . . . holy shit.

VNC will live on, but what new ideas might have come this lab? What technology, what science, will now never be invented, or at the very least horribly delayed? This is awful, how could any company get pissy over intellectual property rights when there is so much more at stake? For crying out loud, shutting down not only one of the premier research labs in the world, but a (I think?) profitable one at that!

Re:Holy shit. . . .

[sagneta]

What they think is that they are going out of business in the not-to-distant future.

The Gartner group claims that within 5 years AT&T will be purchased by another corporation and will cease to exist as a serpate corporate entity. The time frame might be optimistic, 5 years seems a bit soon, but the conclustion is indisputable. AT&T just began a 5-1 stock reverse split. First time in its history and the first for a DOW component. That's something that soon-to-be-delisted dot-coms do. Not DOW components.

How the mightly hast fallen.

I'm not sure if those outside the United States realize that MA-Bell is on her deathbed. In fact, amoungst the possible purchasers of the AT&T franchise are any number of the baby-bells such as Verizon or PacBell.

Thus the closing of the lab is just a
sign of AT&T's time. Telco in general is cratering within the United States. The internet is crushing the old to make way for the new.

I have to tell you that, honestly, AT&T had it coming for some time. I am sorry that many good people are getting squashed but the corporation as a while has done much to harm customers and prevent the movement towards the Internet in recent years.

In any event, so goes AT&T and so goes the lab.

Sorry guys.

This is what breeds true innovation...

[lw54]

In Hopper's lab there was a rule that anyone could buy anything on his own authority so long as it cost less than £1,000. If you wanted something more expensive, you had to get another signature, but that was usually a breeze.

It was known colloquially as the 'toys budget' and it was, no doubt, sometimes used for frivolous purchases. But in the main it was not. And it meant that the lab's researchers always had the latest gizmos - and the freedom to take them apart and see how they worked.

My first thoughts were how on earth could management implement and afford a policy like this. But in the end, I thought true innovation requires liberal policies such as these.

The dotCOM era was full of excess, perhaps too much so, but this is proof that there are still companies out there striving to be the best.

Lame header

[wakaramon]

"UK Lab Responsible for VNC To Close" is lame.
A better header would be "AT&T Kills Lab that Created VNC".

The "UK Lab" is responsible for VNC, not for its closure. AT&T is responsible for closing the lab.

Re:Tragic? Maybe.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Nothing terribly revolutionary has come out of the UK Research group recently...

Things that have come out of AT&T Labs Cambridge recently:

The Active Bat system, which can locate in 3D better than any other deployed system. They are using Bat transmitters as mice in the air, on 50 inch plasma screens. Now that's a cool interface.

A broadband phone, rolled out across the entire staff, which lets then see train timetables, share a doodling screen during phone calls, have active directories so that they can call the nearest phone to someone (c.f. Bat above)

At least visit their website before you start trolling. You might even learn something.

Olivetti was the creator. and its not dead anyway.

[nurb432]

ATT only bought them and changed the source to reflect ownership. they *created* nothing.. barely even a bug fix since the buyout..

Thats why groupls like tightVNC ( gpl ) or TridiaVNC ( commercial ) came about.. and will continue it far into the future..

Its not going anywhere.. do some homework people.

Still sad, though anyone could see it coming...