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‘Supermicro’ market to grow 12 times by 1986
Sinclair continues expansion with US sales deal Sinclair Research, the world's largest microcomputer manufacturer in terms of volume, has agreed a licencing deal with Timex Corp. of the USA to market all Sinclair's microcomputer technology in the States. Sinclair is to receive a royalty of five per cent on hardware from any origin and on Sinclair-supplied software and two and a half per cent on software from other sources. The world market leader in watches, Timex have a high technology background ranging from cameras to gyroscopes and access to 170 000 retail outlets in the USA, although some of these are high street jewellers and others who will not be expected to stock microcomputers. Current US sales of the Sinclair ZX81 are 15 000 a month and rising. Mail order selling cannot cope with the number of units shifted. Timex are already manufacturing subcontractors in the UK turning out 60 000 ZX81s a month in Dundee of which two-thirds are exported. Sinclair's add-on 16k RAM and ZX Printer are averaging sales of 15 000 a month. Such sales have boosted the Sinclair Research turnover from £4.65M in 1981 to a 1982 extrapolated figure of £30M. The licencing agreement is also for the Sinclair name - the ZX81 will have both names on it in the USA -
and for Sinclair BASIC the dialect recently adopted by ICL and which Clive Sinclair, 95 per cent owner of Sinclair Research, hopes will become a world standard. The royalty payments also cover Timex's own developments of Sinclair products. The cost of Sinclair's research and development programme is about £3M a year while directly employing only 25 people. The company is now a year into its £5M four-year capital investment programme for production of a flat screen CRT and pocket TV scheduled for launch late in 1982. Several months behind the Sony flat screen TV, the Sinclair is expected to cost less than half the Sony and Clive Sinclair hopes that breakfast television in the UK will spur the sales of his product.
'Supermicro' market to grow 12 times by 1986
offer supermicro systems. Most are little known newcomers, but HewlettPackard, IBM, Intel and Zilog are also participating. Part of the reason for the proliferation of these newcomers is the buyers market in venture capital especially around Silicon Valley and recently in the UK, according to the report. The study goes on to say that interest in local area networks is low. Very few of the supermicro suppliers have a LAN and the designers who responded indicated far more enthusiasm for conventional asynchronous communications ports than for Ethernet of other LANs. The study costs £560 and is called 'The Supermicro market' and is available from IPI, 134 Holland Park A venue, London WI 1 4UE, UK. Teh 01-221 0998 Telex: 22861 METMA K G.
The worldwide market for 'supermicros', microcomputer sized systems with the power of todays superminis will exceed $5500M by 1986 from a projected 1982 level of $447M according to a study from ITOM International, and the UK will be a major centre of activity. Supermicros are made possible primarily by the development of such 16-bit microprocessors as the Intel 8086, .Motorola 68000 and Zilog Z8000; also by the wide availability of dense, 64 kbit memory chips and the development of compact, high capacity Winchester abd floppy disc drives. More than 50 US firms already
164
Logic arrays spotlighted in AMD/LSI programme A five-year cooperative programme in logic array technology has been announced between Advanced Micro Devices and LSI Logic Corp. Under the agreement, AMD will be licensed by LSI Logic to manufacture, market and sell the LCA 1200 series 10k compatible ECL Macrocell arrays which consist of 600 and 1200 equivalent gate devices. AMD will also standardize on LSI Logic's LDS I CAD system for the development of logic arrays. This is a design automation system for the simulation, test generation and layout of complex arrays implemented in bipoJar or MOS technologies. The agreement includes provision for shared research and the first product of this cooperative development effort will be a family of ECL arrays with 2000 to 3000 gates, subnanosecond delays and onchip RAM.
Cash for insurance software
1981 's biggest selling microcomputer from Sinclair Research
Contracts totalling $7.6M have been received by Informatics Inc. for the advance licensing of two software programs currently under development. An insurance administration system called LIFE-COMM is taking $6M of this, and the remaining $1.6M is for a stock and bond system. Under what Informatics calls its Future Insurance Policy, clients will 'help shape the development of these two software systems and will be entitled to use the new systems as they are completed'. The LI FE-COMM development will take four years, and the stock and bond system, three years.
Johnson get I]'r
(Europe)
Johnson Controls has acquired ITT's European Controls Group which has business activities in the UK, Germany, France, Holland, Belgium and Sweden. The deal will add about £30M to Johnson's European control business, in the shape of Maclaren Gas and Thermostat Products, Flowstream Industrial Control Products and System Sales.
microprocessors and microsystems
and for Sinclair BASIC the dialect recently adopted by ICL and which Clive Sinclair, 95 per cent owner of Sinclair Research, hopes will become a world standard. The royalty payments also cover Timex's own developments of Sinclair products. The cost of Sinclair's research and development programme is about £3M a year while directly employing only 25 people. The company is now a year into its £5M four-year capital investment programme for production of a flat screen CRT and pocket TV scheduled for launch late in 1982. Several months behind the Sony flat screen TV, the Sinclair is expected to cost less than half the Sony and Clive Sinclair hopes that breakfast television in the UK will spur the sales of his product.
'Supermicro' market to grow 12 times by 1986
offer supermicro systems. Most are little known newcomers, but HewlettPackard, IBM, Intel and Zilog are also participating. Part of the reason for the proliferation of these newcomers is the buyers market in venture capital especially around Silicon Valley and recently in the UK, according to the report. The study goes on to say that interest in local area networks is low. Very few of the supermicro suppliers have a LAN and the designers who responded indicated far more enthusiasm for conventional asynchronous communications ports than for Ethernet of other LANs. The study costs £560 and is called 'The Supermicro market' and is available from IPI, 134 Holland Park A venue, London WI 1 4UE, UK. Teh 01-221 0998 Telex: 22861 METMA K G.
The worldwide market for 'supermicros', microcomputer sized systems with the power of todays superminis will exceed $5500M by 1986 from a projected 1982 level of $447M according to a study from ITOM International, and the UK will be a major centre of activity. Supermicros are made possible primarily by the development of such 16-bit microprocessors as the Intel 8086, .Motorola 68000 and Zilog Z8000; also by the wide availability of dense, 64 kbit memory chips and the development of compact, high capacity Winchester abd floppy disc drives. More than 50 US firms already
164
Logic arrays spotlighted in AMD/LSI programme A five-year cooperative programme in logic array technology has been announced between Advanced Micro Devices and LSI Logic Corp. Under the agreement, AMD will be licensed by LSI Logic to manufacture, market and sell the LCA 1200 series 10k compatible ECL Macrocell arrays which consist of 600 and 1200 equivalent gate devices. AMD will also standardize on LSI Logic's LDS I CAD system for the development of logic arrays. This is a design automation system for the simulation, test generation and layout of complex arrays implemented in bipoJar or MOS technologies. The agreement includes provision for shared research and the first product of this cooperative development effort will be a family of ECL arrays with 2000 to 3000 gates, subnanosecond delays and onchip RAM.
Cash for insurance software
1981 's biggest selling microcomputer from Sinclair Research
Contracts totalling $7.6M have been received by Informatics Inc. for the advance licensing of two software programs currently under development. An insurance administration system called LIFE-COMM is taking $6M of this, and the remaining $1.6M is for a stock and bond system. Under what Informatics calls its Future Insurance Policy, clients will 'help shape the development of these two software systems and will be entitled to use the new systems as they are completed'. The LI FE-COMM development will take four years, and the stock and bond system, three years.
Johnson get I]'r
(Europe)
Johnson Controls has acquired ITT's European Controls Group which has business activities in the UK, Germany, France, Holland, Belgium and Sweden. The deal will add about £30M to Johnson's European control business, in the shape of Maclaren Gas and Thermostat Products, Flowstream Industrial Control Products and System Sales.
microprocessors and microsystems