Bell Atlantic Corp and DSC Communications Corp have filed a $3,500m lawsuit against AT&T Corp charging it with monoplizing the equipment and software markets as well as the Caller ID markets. The suit alleges that AT&T is delaying and preventing the use of interconnecting plugs that vendors such as DSC need. It also alleges that it kept competitors out of the market by sabotaging interface standards that vendors use to connect other manufacturers’ equipments to telephone switches. Further charges say that AT&T deliberately blocked Caller ID service information on most long distance services, and had been doing so for years. AT&T says it does not comment on litigation. – o Unix founder, Dennis Ritchie, hinted he may be involved in the development of a rival version of Sun Microsystems’ Java. During a speech at the UniForum trade show in San Francisco this week, he briefly mentioned the undertaking, which apparently involves a group of AT & T Bell Labs researchers, which has been working on the secret crash project for the past nine months. According to the San Jose Mercury News, the significance of the project, code- named Inferno, caused the Bell Labs group to shelve another major research plan for a Unix successor known as Plan 9. Ritchie notes that although the thinking behind Java is compelling, he is concerned it has become too big.
