Amstrad's Bursting Out All Over

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday October 31, 1988

AT Amstrad almost everything is happening at once. Alan Sugar and his team continue to totally dominate the British market, to have a very large presence in Europe and to be working away like mad at things to make it in Australia in a big way.

This month, Amstrad reported profits for the year to mid-June which were 18 per cent higher at 160.4 million pounds ($A345million). Now, Amstrad is about to start manufacturing computers in China.

Much of Amstrad machinery is already sourced from South-east Asia. There are about 500 people in Hong Kong alone working on Amstrad-badged goods. But the attraction of much lower labour costs in the People's Republic of China is almost irresistible.

Stan Randall, who is the managing director of Amstrad in Hong Kong, said the company was looking at seven factories in Foshan which are within striking distance of Hong Kong and Guangdong.

The first Chinese products should start appearing next year.

It is also widely rumoured that Amstrad will enter the exploding market for facsimile transmission machines. The new machine will be priced at less than$1,500 and will be available in England possibly as early as January of next year. At this price Amstrad will zap the market.

Can Amstrad manufacture facsimile transmission machines to this price?

Sure.

On Amstrad's track record it would not surprise anyone if they eventually got the price down to below $1,000.

An interesting rumour is that this fax will have a serial port.

This will allow text from a pc to be pumped directly into machine which will give far higher reproduction at the receiving end. It is the input scanner that degrades the image the most.

Other news about Amstrad.

* Amstrad has taken a $5-million stake in Micron Technology, the United States semi-conductor manufacturer. In a world where DRam chips - the chips needed for the erasable memory of computers - are in short supply, and where Commodore is rumoured to have fanged 40 per cent of the free market, this is plainly an astute move.

Alan Sugar, the gaffer at Amstrad, says the investment gives Amstrad a 9 per cent stake in the American company and guarantees Amstrad up to 9 per cent of Micron's DRam and other chip output for three years starting next January.

* Last week, there was a three-day Amstrad Computer Show held in Manchester, England. Tons of add-ons on display for the Amstrad PPC portable. This is the odd shaped 8086-based machine that runs off batteries and has a visual display which is some way away from being the state of the art.

In Britain, where the price is under $850 for the basic model, it is a big seller.

At the show Memory Corporation demonstrated its Dovetail expansion unit for the PPC, as well as for other portables. The unit sells for a touch under $500 and has two full-length PC XT style card slots with a power supply and an internal cooling fan. You can also get this unit with a 20 or 30 megabyte hard disc built in.

It requires mains power but the company is looking at a battery option.

* Stratum Technology had a single expansion slot box for sale for about$250. To go with it is a Traveldisk - this is a 10-megabyte hard disc which is priced at $850. These peripherals are expandable so, in theory, you can keep bolting these goodies on until your portable needs a furniture van to move it