The summons home of Cassoni is also widely seen as signalling the imminent end of the relationship between AT&T and Olivetti, likely to culminate in AT&T taking the $750m or so profit available to it on its existing 22% stake in the Italian: commercial ties are likely to survive such a rift a while longer – but only until AT&T finds another personal computer supplier that can meet the quality and quantity it wants at a lower price than Olivetti; Olivetti for its part has given up any pretence of seriously marketing AT&T’s products – it still hasn’t launched the European version of the System 75 PABX anywhere, and the AT&T-Philips Telecommunications BV joint venture couldn’t do any worse selling AT&T telecommunications kit than Olivetti has been.
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