I remember everyone saying what a daft name, but those were the times (remember Ericsson Enterprise rebranding as “Damovo”?)
You have to remember that BT was on the verge of going bust. £30m in debt. It was a case of sell something off or go under. There was also a view within BT that the dreary business of running high cost low margin networks was a mug’s game, that the future was in systems/services integration, and that BT would just buy-in cellular services, eg their almost immediate replacement partnership with Vodafone.
It’s been said that business schools will be teaching it for years as a great strategic blunder, but in hindsight BT played a blinder. They got £18m for O2, saved the business, and got back into cellular eventually (and with a far better network) by buying EE for £12m. BT was and is a basket case, but things could have turned out a lot worse for them.