BSkyB buys Amstrad

Micro$oft deserves a beating up though, as does BSkyB in some cases - both because of actions trying to choke the market and gain an unfair monopoly.

I'd imagine that it would make commercial sense for that to happen - although there are clear reliability issues with certain boxes if they can be resolved there is no commercial sense for having different brands available.

All Sky digiboxes do the same thing and use the same software, the different brands have never (generally) been directly selectable by the customer, it's always just been a matter of what's been around at the time.

It's allready been proven to be more issue than it's worth to have boxes with 'Panasonic', 'Sony' etc emblazoned on the front as people with insular loyalty to particular brands demand a box made by their favourite manufacturer and don't understand why they can't choose whatever they want.

To that end, most (all?) current boxes seem to be *very* discreetly branded (the Thomson boxes certainly only have a small 'manufactured by Thomson' badge on the TOP of the case - nothing on the front panel at all).

The whole idea of having branded Sky boxes available is just a legacy from Sky Analogue days when people could choose to buy a range of different satellite receivers with different prices, different technology and different features - it's not and never has been relevant to Sky digital.

Being that Sky now faces serious threats from people who are happy with Freeview, and with the withdrawl of basic tier channels from cable not appearing to be as big an issue as they thought, along with them coming under constant criticism for the amount they charge, they have got to find a way to make things cheaper but without upsetting their board by reducing profits. Owning their own box manufacturing facility so that they can source boxes at cost rather than having to buy them from another company is an ideal way of doing it.

Amstrad may well be the last British electronics manufacturer of any singificance left, but most of the stuff they've made for the last 15 odd years has either been crap or misguided and failed to gain a foothold (e-mailer telephone, anyone?), and the digibox operation is the only thing keeping them going as a company of any signficance.

The company of innovation which was around in the 80's and early 90's is dead and gone. At least this way they have been bought as a profitable going concern and can ultimately be deemed to have been a succesful company, rather than collapsing and being viewed as a failure.

Even if you want to say that MS or Sky have a monopoly (or are trying for one), what's the problem with a monopoly? If consumers were so up in arms about it, they'd vote with their wallets, and someone else could swoop in with something cheaper and more attractive (take budget airlines) for people not wanting to fork over for British Airwa-erm...Windows.
The idea that MS should be penalised for things like bundling IE because it made Netscape cry is ridiculous. MS has (or should have) every right to make Windows only run their own software if they really wanted to - they fact they just pre-install a browser (same with Real Networks vs. WMP) is such a non-issue.
This is all getting a bit off-topic - sorry about that, but my main point - my long long buried point - is that monopolies are merely the mark of good business, and shouldn't be constrained by arbitrary rules to stunt their growth. (Here's looking at you Competition Commission)

Will Sugar get to keep the Amstrad name, I wonder?

If not, this whole thing has echoes, somewhat ironically, of the way Sinclair went in the mid-80s. A formerly successful electronics company that branched out into computers but hit hard times, sells out but gets to keep the new-model computer side of the business but loses the rights to the name.

(Let's not forget that Sugar still runs Viglen).

TBH this makes sense. I wouldn't be surprised if Pace follows suit in the coming year or so -- it also relies heavily on BSkyB and isn't exactly raking in the money the way it used to.

I wouldn't be surprised if BSkyB ditch the Amstrad name and take it under there own name. Depends whether BSkyB strip Amstrad of it's assets & ditch the rest or continue as an independant company owned by BSkyB. I assume Sir Alan still owns Ams-air etc?

Ah right, thanks for correcting me.

I wouldn't see the point of retaining the name - it is in fact an acronym of A lan M ichael S ugar TRAD ing. Now it'll be Rupert Murdoch, not Sir Alan, it'd be quite disjointed.

Unless Sir Alan is staying connected with the company?

Boo-hoo!

So, some other faceless corporation has been shafted?

If it wasn't for Microsoft and Sky we would have neither PC's or Multi-
channel TV.

Yes, there's no point in keeping the name, I suspect they'll just be Sky branded boxes made by a department of BSkyB

Our PCs would be quite a lot better if Microsoft had never existed. I will quote here from Douglas Adams (writer of The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy , The Restaurant at the End of the Universe , Life, the Universe and Everything , So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish , Mostly Harmless and many other funny and surprisingly accurate books):



And I was under the impression that multi-channel TV already existed in the forms of BBCs 1 and 2, ITV and Channel Four before BSB or Sky even existed.

I believe Sir Alan is staying on in the company.

I suppose it depend quite what Sky plan to do with Amstrad. If they are only interested in the STB manufacturing side, then they have no need for it and may as well Alan Sugar hold onto the name to leave him free to manufacture other Amstrad-branded products. If Sky are still seriously interested in continuing to produce the rest of Amstrad's other product line, they'll probably take the name too.

What could happen is Alan Sugar creates a new company, Sky buys Amstrad and then sells the brand, intellectual rights and stocks of all the bits they don't want to the new company.