kalmar wrote:
chinnyhill10 wrote:
kalmar wrote:
Remind me how he became incredibly rich and famous again?
Amstrad. The big break was the CPC, then the PCW and then the PC1512 and 1640. At one point in the 80's Amstrad were pretty much selling more computers than everyone else put together.
Of course I remember the CPC. But I always thought they were radically outsold by almost everything else, on the basis that they weren't terribly good*!
A) - Amstrads computers were generally better built than their competitors. While Sinclair were suffering high return rates due to them using a dodgy factory in Scotland, Amstrad used state of the art facilities in Korea. So for their computers at least, they were not aiming at the bottom of the market.
B) - The Speccy and C64 did outsell the CPC, but the CPC still shifted 3 million units and at a far higher profit margin thanks to the higher retail price. Also it was the market leader in France where it sold a third of all units.
C) - The PCW and PC1512/1640 sold in large numbers and were very profitable.
D) The acquisition of Sinclair enabled them to further dominate the market. Walk into a branch of Dixons in 1987 and the chances were the only non Amstrad home computer on the shelves was the C64.