Amstrad
of Brentwood
1968 Amstrad was founded by Alan Sugar at the age of 21.
1970s Leading supplier of low-priced hi-fi, TV and car stereo cassette technologies. Lower prices were achieved by injection moulding plastic hi-fi turntable covers, undercutting competitors who used the vacuum forming process.
Amstrad expanded by marketing low cost amplifiers and tuners, imported from East Asia and badged with the Amstrad name for the UK market. A early product was the Amstrad 8000 amplifier.
1980 listed on the Stock Exchange
1984 Amstrad began marketing their own home computers in an attempt to capture the market from Commodore and Sinclair, with the Amstrad CPC range. The CPC 464 was launched in the UK, France, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Spain and Italy. It was followed by the CPC 664 and CPC 6128 models. Later "Plus" variants of the 464 and 6128, launched in 1990, increased their functionality slightly.
In 1985, the Amstrad PCW range was introduced, which were principally word processors, complete with printer, running the LocoScript word processing program. They were also capable of running the CP/M operating system. The Amsoft division of Amstrad was set up to provide in-house software and consumables.
On 7 April 1986 Amstrad announced it had bought from Sinclair Research "...the worldwide rights to sell and manufacture all existing and future Sinclair computers and computer products, together with the Sinclair brand name and those intellectual property rights where they relate to computers and computer related products." which included the ZX Spectrum, for £5 million. This included Sinclair's unsold stock of Sinclair QLs and Spectrums. Amstrad made more than £5 million on selling these surplus machines alone. Amstrad launched two new variants of the Spectrum: the ZX Spectrum +2, based on the ZX Spectrum 128, with a built-in tape drive (like the CPC 464) and, the following year, the ZX Spectrum +3, with a built-in floppy disk drive (similar to the CPC 664 and 6128), taking the 3" disks that many Amstrad machines used.
1986 The company produced a range of affordable MS-DOS-based, but with the GEM graphics interface, and later Windows-based personal computers, the first of which was the PC1512, priced at £399. It was a success, capturing more than 25% of the European computer market.
In 1988 Amstrad attempted to make the first "affordable" portable personal computer with the PPC512 and 640 models, introduced a year before the Macintosh Portable. They ran MS-DOS on an 8 MHz processor, and the built-in screen could emulate the Monochrome Display Adapter or Color Graphics Adapter.
Amstrad's final attempts to exploit the Sinclair brand were based on the company's own PCs; a compact desktop PC derived from the PPC 512, branded as the Sinclair PC200, and the PC1512 rebadged as the Sinclair PC500.
1989 Amstrad's second generation of PCs, the PC2000 series, were launched but due to a problem with the Seagate ST277R hard disk shipped with the PC2386 model, these had to be recalled and fitted with Western Digital controllers. Amstrad later successfully sued Seagate, but following bad press over the hard disk problems, Amstrad lost its lead in the European PC market.
1989 Amstrad became a major supplier of set top boxes to UK satellite TV provider Sky from its launch in 1989. Amstrad was key to the introduction of Sky, as it was the only manufacturer producing receiver boxes and dishes at the system's launch.
1990 Amstrad tried to enter the video game console market with the Amstrad GX4000 based on the Amstrad 464 Plus hardware. It was a commercial failure, as it used 8-bit technology unlike the 16-bit Mega Drive and Super Nintendo.
In the early 1990s, Amstrad began to focus on portable computers rather than desktop computers.
1993 Amstrad was licenced by Sega to produce a system which was similar to the Sega TeraDrive, under the name of Amstrad Mega PC, to try to regain their image in the gaming market. The system did not succeed as well as expected, mostly due to its high initial retail price of £599. In that same year, Amstrad released the PenPad, a personal digital assistant (PDA) similar to the Apple Newton, and released only weeks before it. It was a commercial failure, and had several technical and usability problems. It lacked most features that the Apple Newton included, but had a lower price at $450.
As Amstrad began to concentrate less on computers and more in communication, they purchased several telecommunications businesses including Betacom, Dancall Telecom, Viglen Computers and Dataflex Design Communications during the early 1990s. Amstrad continued to manufacture set top boxes for Sky, from analogue to digital and now including Sky's Sky+ digital video recorder.
1997 Amstrad PLC was wound up, its shares being split into Viglen and Betacom instead. Betacom PLC was then renamed Amstrad PLC.
The same year, Amstrad supplied set top boxes to Australian broadcaster Foxtel, and in 2004 to Italian broadcaster Sky Italia.
2000 Amstrad released the first of its combined telephony and e-mail devices, called the E-m@iler. This was followed by the E-m@iler Plus in 2002, and the E3 Videophone in 2004. Amstrad’s UK E-m@iler business is operated through a separate company, Amserve Ltd which is 89.8% owned by Amstrad and 10.2% owned by DSG International plc (formerly Dixons plc).
Amstrad has also produced a variety of home entertainment products over their history, including hi-fi, televisions, VCRs, and DVD players.
2007 BSkyB announced a takeover of Amstrad for £125m, a 23.7% premium to its market capitalisation. BSkyB had been a major client of Amstrad, accounting for 75% of sales for its 'set top box' business. Having supplied BSkyB with hardware since its inception in 1988, market analysts had noted the two companies becoming increasingly close in recent years.