Media File: 1983
Sinclair in the News

Financial Times
September 12, 1983

Sinclair's Next Step

Sir Clive Sinclair, whose public image is a mixture of master magician and guru of the post-industrial age, is preparing to pull another trick out of the hat. Characteristically, it will challenge conventional wisdom in the rest of the personal computer industry.

His first product, the ZX-80, went on sale three years ago at what then seemed the impossibly low price of £100, and opened up a market which much bigger competitors had ignored. His company, Sinclair Research, has since sold more than 1.5m machines and recently reported sharply increased profits and turnover. His next personal computer, the ZX-84, is due out in the first half of next year, and will be aimed at much the same business-in-the-home market as IBM's Peanut. But Sir Clive does not plan to join what he calls the "gadarene swine" stampede by U.S. manufacturers to make IBM-compatible products. Instead, he plans to create his own standard.

He reasons that Sinclair Research lacks the manufacturing and marketing strength to tackle IBM head-on. So he plans to build on its reputation for innovative design and the availability of large amounts of software written for its products.

"Our new machine will have performance features which will put it very much ahead of the competition," he promises. It will cost between £400 and £2,000 and will be backed by sophisticated new software packages for word processing and financial planning. Initially, at least, it will not incorporate the miniature flat display screen fitted to the pocket television which Sinclair will launch this week.

Sir Clive will not say whether the ZX-84 will, like his other computers, be made at the Timex factory in Dundee, Scotland. He says he is deteermined to reclaim a share of the market in the U.S. but has not yet decided whether Timex will make the ZX-84 under licence there.

He insists that the recent slump in U.S. sales of Sinclair machines was not Timex's fault but blames Texas Instruments for ruining the market by price cutting. "Those cowboys from Texas -- you'd think they'd have learned something by now," he says. But though Sinclair's royalty income from his computers made by Timex in the U.S. is down sharply this year, he is philosophical: "Had we not been shielded by Timex in the States, we would have suffered a really grave loss."