Government efforts boost European micros markets The European market for microcom- puters will see 'explosive growth' over the next three to four years. UK sales will lead the way thanks to government and industry efforts to public aware- ness, according to two market reports from the USA.

There are now 1.7M personal com- puters in European homes and offices, says International Resource Develop- ment (IRD). This will rise to 18M by 1985. The market for very small busi- ness computers will grow at 20 per cent each year to reach $3000M worth by 1986 predicts Creative Strategies International (CSI).

IBM is expected to emerge as the leading vendor in the office sector while Sinclair, Commodore and others carve up the lower end. There are already about 20 000 IBM PCs in Europe even though the machine has not officially been introduced at the time of writing. A low end IBM machine is, predicted by I RD 'within two years'. About half the 1 M IBM PCs built in 1983 will go outside North America.

Indust ry market ing

Accelerating UK sales of micros, worth $160M are ascribed by I RD to good industry marketing ahd govern- ment policy. Information Technology

Year '82 (IT '82) is also said to have had an important effect.

About ½M units, £385M worth, have been sold in 1982 in the UK says IRD. The 1982 installed base of 875 000 units consists of 675 000 home/hobby and educational machines, and 200 000 business/professional and scientific systems. The UK market will 'continue to grow substantially' over the next ten years.

The potential demand for very small business systems in Europe is 4.5M units, according to CSI. But pro- jected 1986 installations will number less than 15 per cent of that. West Germany and the UK will be the largest markets.

US and Japanese suppliers are find- ing translation of software and docu- mentation into European languages expensive. In France in particular, there is pressure from government and user for French language software.

There is an approved list of transla- tions including donn#e for data, num#rique for digital and info- graphie for graphics. The French Lambda microcomputer offers a dialect of BASIC which, for instance, instead of FOR... NEXT, uses DEPUIS . . . AUTRE, for CLEAR uses EFFACE. I RD says that French consumers may be prepared to pay a

International growth helps Logica's profits Logica's turnover and profits for 1981/2 rose 30 per cent and 10 per cent respectively. Pretax earnings for the UK company were £2.25M. Sales for the year were split 60:40 between the UK and overseas. Operations in the USA grew particularly fast, accounting for 12.5 per cent of the total.

Toshiba and SGS agree CMOS deal An agreement to develop a high speed CMOS logic family has been reached by Toshiba and SGS. The two com- panies will independently produce and market HS-C2MOS.

Pin compatible with industry LSTTL logic, the new devices are claimed to operate faster than LSTTL and feature low power consumption, high noise immunity and wide supply voltage range.

Clock frequencies range up to 60 MHz and output drive currents will be over 4mA (sink and source).

UK portable micros get £2.5M of orders Manufacturers of Osborne-challenging Andromeda portable micros, IT Com- puter services, report orders worth £2.5M in the 5½ weeks after launch. 'Demand has far outstripped our schedules' says IT MD David Lewis- Pryce. The schedules have had to be revised and suppliers have been des- cribed as 'superb' by Mr Lewis-Pryce.

Millions of units

IBM 4 Commodore 3 Sinclair 2 Apple 2 Sharp 1.5 Philips I Tandy 1 Acorn 0.5 All others* 3

Total 18

*Includes DEC, Olivetti, Rediffusion, Osborne, Rank-Xerox, H-P, Atari, NEC, Toshiba, etc.

Microcomputer suppliers in Europe in 1985

premium for the Lambda which is otherwise similar to the cheaper Sinclair Spectrum. (CSI, Banda House, Cambridge Grove, London W60LN, UK. Tel: 01-741 4767. IRD, 30 High Street, Norwalk, CT 06851, USA. Tel: 203-866 6914)

Telecom approval for Torch micro 'a first' The approval by British Telecom for the Torch microcomputer to be linked to the public switched telephone net- work is a first, says Torch. The machine has received similar approval in Canada and the USA and is now undergoing tests in Europe.

The standard version of the Torch includes a modem conforming to CCITT standards, which provide auto- dial and autoanswer, 1200 baud receive and transmit and 75 baud trans- mit to give Viewdata.

Torch's micro has BT approval

vol 7 no I january/february 1983 53