SBC to become 'AT&T, Inc.'

San Antonio (Texas) - Apparently reversing a decision made by SBC Communications during its acquisition earlier this year, the company announced this morning that it will formally adopt the name "AT&T, Inc." before the end of this year, and that it will unveil a new logo for the corporation.

In its statement, SBC said, "The AT&T brand was selected because it provides the best brand platform to bridge the combined companies’ wide range of customer segments, diverse geographies and robust portfolio of products, services and customer care. The AT&T brand is especially strong in the critical enterprise market, where leading chief information officers and industry experts widely acknowledge it as the brand of choice and where it is strongly associated with industry innovation and leadership."

The SBC brand will apparently go completely away. That brand was the product of the amalgam of three of the "Baby Bells" (regional Bell operating companies, or RBOCs) that were split off from the original American Telephone and Telegraph Co. : namely Southwestern Bell, Pacific Telesis, most recently Ameritech ; along with the original name of SBC’s long-distance network, SNET. Headquarters for the new AT&T will apparently remain in San Antonio.

The statement quotes SBC CEO Edward Whitacre, Jr., as saying, "The AT&T brand reflects what customers are looking for in a provider. They want the latest technology and services, but they also want reliability, quality and trustworthiness. Only the AT&T brand offers this ideal combination of traits."

The brand change will apparently affect partnerships, such as the popular SBC Yahoo ! DSL service, offered in many parts of the US.

Making its exit along with the SBC brand name, however, will be the familiar "Death Star" logo, originally designed in 1984 for the ill-fated "American Bell" division by the legendary commercial artist, Saul Bass. Bass had already gained fame for his previous rendition of the Bell System logo, as well as his unforgettable hand-made animated titles for many of Alfred Hitchcock’s more memorable films.