Industry Week

March 5, 1984

Home computers stop ticking at Timex

SECTION: NEWSCOPE; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 142 words



Timex Corp. is the latest company to leave the home-computer field, an industry 
one Timex official describes as "on a kamikaze path." Its Timex Sinclair 1000, the 
first computer priced below $100, reportedly now sells for less than $10 in some 
drugstores. Although Timex is scrapping its own brand, it will continue to make 
computers for other manufacturers, including Sinclair Research Ltd. of England. A 
recent national survey of leading retailers shows that Timex/Sinclair had a 5% share 
of home-computer sales. The '83 leader, with a 38% share, a Television Digest survey 
indicates, ironically was Texas lnstruments (TI), another firm that has abandoned 
the market. Retailers liquidated the TI 99/4 computer for as low as $50, and TI 
dumped some 800,000 computers in November and December -- about half of its volume 
for the year.