Timex pulls out of US market
TIMEX is to withdraw from the US home computer market.
Its computer division is to be dismantled and it will cease selling its range of computers designed by Sinclair — the TS1000 (ZX81), the TS1500 (a 16K version of the ZX81) and the 2068 (the 48K Spectrum equivalent).
Timex thus becomes the third major computer manufacturer to fall victim to the vicious US home computer price-war, following Texas Instruments and Mettel.
Announcing the company’s withdrawal C. Michael Jacobi, vice president of marketing and sales said: “We believe that the instability in the home computer market will cause prices to continue to fall during 1984, making it dillicult to make a reasonable profit.”
Timex will however continue as a computer manufacturer.
Shortly prior to the Timex announcement last week, Sinclair’s managing director Nigel Searle flew to the US for talks with Timex. Following his discussions with senior Timex management Sinclair has now announced that it has no plans to market the Timex machines or, indeed, to sell a direct conversion of its successful Spectrum in the US.
A spokeswoman for Sinclair commented: “The home computer marketplace is still very shaky over there.”
The news is not just a blow to Sinclair, but also a set-back for the many British software houses preparing to sell 2068 versions of their Spectrum material in the US.
One of the hardest hit companies will be Psion. Its Vu-File, Vu-Calc and Vu-3D programs and its three Horace titles were all being marketed by Timex for the 2068. Melbourne House will be affected as will Softsync, an American house. Software from companies like Psion being marketed by Timex will either continue to be sold by Timex or sold off to other US software houses. Quite who will buy and market software for a machine which has now been discontinued is unclear.
Mark Eyles, speaking on behalf of Quicksilva which launched its American subsidiary less than two months ago said: “Obviously it will affect us, but when we set up our US company we were very careful not to rely on a single machine — we have a very respectable range of Commodore 64 software on sale out there as well as our Spectrum material.
“It is sad that Timex has given up — lots of British companies spent a great deal of time and effort trying to support Sinclair out in the US and it looked like it was just beginning to take off. We will just have to hang on and wait for the QL.”
Sinclair too will presumably be hanging on till the QL goes on sale in the States. The company plans to sell its QL machine by mail-order with American deliveries beginning in the late Summer.
It remains to be seen how much the Timex collapse will influence sales of the QL. The Sinclair spokeswoman commented: “We do not believe that the problems in the US home computer market affect products in the price range of the QL.”
Timex’s difficulties first began in January 1983 when it showed a Spectrum at the Chicago CES Show. Sales of the ZX81 equivalent immediately slumped and it was not until November that the 2068 appeared in a modified form in American shops. By that time, stores which had been caught with surplus stocks of the ZX81 could not be persuaded to take the new machine.