dam@mtqua.att.com (Daniel A Margolis) (02/24/90)
I guess it's time to come out of the woodwork. There have been enough flames about the dumping claim that I almost dislike reading this newsgroup. I am an AT&T employee and I do work for General Business Systems. I am an engineer, not a PR-person or a lawyer, and everything I know about the dumping claim is public knowledge, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of AT&T. There - how's that for a disclaimer? I want to set a few things straight. First of all, as far as I know, there are only two American manufacturers of the specified systems: AT&T and Comdial. The claim was filed jointly by both companies. Furthermore, the claim was thoroughly investigated by two commissions (ITC and someone else). If they found in favor of the American companies, then there was sufficient evidence. I doubt that General Business Systems has any undo influence in such matters. They just presented facts and knowledgeable witnesses. It does not matter whether the company accused of dumping has designed a product specifically for the US. What does matter is that they have been found to be subsidizing their US products with their Japanese profits. This can be seen as taking advantage of the fact that the US market is much more open than the Japanese market. Right now, Japanese consumers are paying for our "below cost" prices, and each Japanese company has a small amount of market share, but with a little collusion, the Japanese companies can control the market. Then, we will find that American consumers will pay the full burden and more. Of course, if the Japanese companies manufacture in the US, they can do the same thing and get away with it (perhaps a weakness in the law). For the person who made the point that SW Bell's system is cheaper than the MERLIN system, you are assuming that SW Bell's system is US made. None of the RBOCs is permitted to manufacture. They take someone else's product and put their logo on it. It could quite possibly be one of the dumped systems. For those people who compare Merlin to Panasonic's 16-station key system, you are comparing the wrong things. AT&T's basic key system is the SPIRIT system. The MERLIN PLUS system is larger and it is a feature-rich luxury model with voice prompting and such. The MERLIN II system is a 54-trunk by 120 station system, much larger than the Panasonic to which you are comparing it. All three are manufactured in the USA. If you were/are looking for a small/cheap/basic key system, you should be looking at the SPIRIT system, not either of the MERLIN systems. On another note I dislike the fact that the average consumer cannot tell the difference between products sold by Bell and products Manufactured by AT&T. At a reunion I mentioned that I worked for AT&T and I was told that my old fraternity house just recently bought a phone system from us and hated it. Actually, they had bought a system from NYNEX, manufactured (dumped?) by TIE. Name recognition just isn't what it used to be. Dan Margolis [Moderator's Note: Thank you for an excellent rebuttal and contribution to the Digest. PT]