★ PEOPLES ★ AMSTRAD'S PROSPECTS FOR 1987 (POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY) ★ |
| Amstrad's prospects for 1987 (Popular Computing Weekly) |
ALAN Sugar is unlikely to be a completely happy man while Amstrad's share price remains in the doldrums, and while suggestions that his PC overheats refuse to die. but for all that he can't be totally displeased with his com pany's performance. His CPC machines have remained a strong, profitable base for the company, while the PCW's spectacular success over the past year promises to be repealed by the PC 1512. Besides this Amstrad now has the Specirum Plus 2 under its belt, while its main rival, the Commodore 64, now costs substantially more Amstrad therefore has the games and small business markets sewn up, and with the aid of the PC should be able to make substantial inroads into the company market over the next year. But Amstrad's very success must now be causing the company a certain amount of heart-searching. So far Sugar has followed a simple pattern with his micro products. First an established market is identified, then the technical department is told to produce a specification that will meet the needs of that market cheaply and reliably, and finally Amstrad makes lots of money selling the end product. Amstrad's problem now is that there are few obvious areas left where it could do this. The follow-up to the PC is the most plausible. This would be a machine higher up the scale, featuring a faster CPU (the Intel 80286) and an IBM-style Enhanced Graphics Adaptor, and the existence of such a machine would help sales into the company market, as buyers would have a logical upgrade path. There are currently three major consoles ready for launch - the Nintendo. Sega and Atari 7800 It's possible that Amstrad could try to badge one of these, but the three companies' expectations of their machines are currently so high that, even rf they were for sale, the price would be more than Alan Sugar would be prepared to pay Amstrad is therefore left with the choice of developing its own machine, or having no console. The company could base a console on the Spectrum, but to maintain compatibility while at the same time rivalling arcade machines in terms of speed and quality of graphics Amstrad would have to add a series of dedicated chips to the existing Spectrum, effectively producing iwo machines in one box. The PCW: A repeat performance from the PC? >> The major problem is, however. software. Games consoles will sell only if they have a reasonable body of arcade quality software available for them, and software development has been Amstrad's one major failing over the past couple of years. The products of Amstrad's in-house development work on the CPC failed to set the world on fire, and left the machines largely dependent on conversions. The PCWs were specifically designed - perhaps With the lesson of the CPC taken on board - to take advantage of a ready-made body of software. and the PC follows the same course. Amstrad would therefore have to make quite radical changes in the way it operates in order to produce a successful games console. The machines Amstrad has at the games end of the mar ket are also by no means securely placed The Spectrum should logically take over from the CPCs, but the current generation of software is making its limitations more and more apparent, and by next Christmas Amstrad will have to have found a replacement in order to maintain its position. The current Spectrum Plus 2 is simply a recased Spectrum 128, which is a Spectrum Plus with extra memory bolted on. which is a recased Spectrum 48. which is on enhanced ZX81, which is a modified ZX80 The standard will now need serious revision if it's to fight the Atari ST. The latter machine is likely to become a serious problem for Amstrad. The micro world is currently split between those who favour the 68000 chip and those who put their faith in the PC standard, and while the 68000-based ST hasn't broken any sales records yet it's likely to build its user base over the next year When that base is big enough, Amstrad may produce its own version, but this isn't quite as tall an order as it might seem. AmigaDos, or a related product, can be licensed, so Amstrad could conceivably buy in some of the necessary technology. Any Amstrad 68000 machine would, however, al most certainly be forced to rely on ST conversions In tho same way as the CPCs rely on Spectrum conversions. All these problems may seem diverse, but there is one common thread that unites them, This time last year Amstrad was market leador only in terms of profits, and these profits were based on a company philosophy of doing what the market leader was doing, but doing it better Amstrad's difficulty now is that the strategy has succeeded so well that it is the markot leador in practically every area it trades in. that there's no-one to chase, arid that it must now innovate rather than emulate So 1987 could either be the year Amstrad starts investing heavily in R&D, or it could be the year the company starts making fridges . . John Lattice , Popular Computing Weekly (1987-01-01)
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